A weather station

The Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet), in furtherance of its partnership with Nigerian tertiary institutions, has inaugurated a weather station at the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, Kaduna State.

Mr Muntari Ibrahim, General Manager, Public Relations, NiMet, on Monday in Abuja, disclosed this in a statement.

He quoted Prof. Sani Mashi, Director-General/CEO of NiMet, as saying that the inauguration was to buoy up the need to establish more meteorological stations in the country in line with World Meteorological Organization (WMO) standard.

Mashi said the agency had decided to develop infrastructure and establish collaboration with universities in the country to develop and upgrade their existing meteorological stations based on their needs assessment, according to the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN.

He said the partnership between NiMet and ABU, Zaria, would greatly enhance the capacity of NiMet to give valuable and accurate weather information.

According to him, weather is one critical element that affects everyone.

“As a university, we believe you have a mandate to produce quality manpower in different aspects of life in order to promote sustainable development, particularly in the country.

“We believe that your mandate and our mandate have a point of convergence, in that whatever manpower, in which field you produce, whether in medicine, agriculture, environmental management, weather information is required.

“ABU is a world class university that in our reasoning deserves a world class meteorological station.

“So as part of the needs assessment we conducted on Nigerian universities, we were convinced that there is need to intervene and assist the federal universities”, he said.

Mashi said that by assisting universities, NiMet would in turn expand its network of stations, adding that it needed over 9,000 meteorological stations going by the WMO standard.

He disclosed that NiMet currently had below a thousand meteorological stations to cater for the weather needs of the country.

According to him, in fulfilling our mandate and meeting with WMO requirement, NiMet has decided to partner with universities to meet their infrastructural deficit.

“And in doing this, NiMet is meeting its own target,’’ he said.

Earlier, the Vice-Chancellor of the university, Prof. Ibrahim Garba, promised to integrate the study of meteorology in the programmes of the university.

Garba also promised that the university would provide the necessary support and security for the newly installed weather station in the university.