Abiodun Awoyemi Hopes to Improve Nigeria’s Emergency Management System

A young man, Abiodun Awoyemi, a student at Penn State University is optimistic that he would improve the Nigeria emergency management system. He hopes that he would use the knowledge acquired from his degree to prevent injuries and death arising from emergencies and disasters in his home country, Nigeria. Abiodun Awoyemi is studying Public Health Preparedness, an option in the master’s degree program in homeland security offered online through the Penn State World Campus; a course that teaches students how to respond to natural or manmade disasters. Human and economic losses suffered from disasters would surely remain a threat to national economic life as it leads to a serious disruption of the functioning of society. This is why it is important that an area of governance such as Emergency management has attracted the interest of a young mind as Awoyemi. As revealed by Penn State News, Abiodun Awoyemi developed his interest in emergency management after a plane crash in June 2012. The young man of 32 years, explained that he had spent his career as a geophysicist in the oil and gas industry, but after he discovered that the plane flying from Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, crashed just a few minutes from its destination– Lagos airport, with all the 153 people on board dead, he became very much attentive to issues on emergency management. He was pained after he discovered that people survived the crash, but many had died from their injuries as they could not get help immediately. He added that he was particularly moved by the dream of one of the victims of the crash, the dreams of becoming the first female President of Nigeria. This, he believes, is the country losing potential, since young people with dreams are dying. Awoyemi started an emergency management business in the country as he hopes that the business would help in bridging the gaps involved in emergency management as soon as he starts running it full time. He noted some of the challenges he had researched which included a lack of state level and local level management agencies, as it is believed that the incorporation of this would drastically reduce the economic and human losses that are derailed by disaster, thereby increasing the socio-economic growth. He hopes to quit his job in January so that he can devote himself to his final research degree project. The degree which he enrolled for in 2016 and hopes to graduate in 2018. Featured Image credit: Penn State University

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This article was first published on 10th November 2017

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