The Director General of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) Muhammad Sani Sidi has been elected as President of the ECOWAS Regional Committee for Disaster Management in the West Africa.
He was elected at the 7th annual meeting of the committee held in Abuja under the auspices of ECOWAS with the participants drawn from the heads of disaster management agencies and international humanitarian organizations in the West African countries.
The election was in recognition of the progress made by Nigeria in advancing the cause of disaster management and providing exemplary leadership for the countries in the region.
An accomplished administrator, Muhammad Sani Sidi was appointed by President Goodluck Jonathan in September 2010 as the Director General of NEMA.
At the time of the appointment, he was a member of the Kaduna State Executive Council where he served variously as the Commissioner for Environment and Natural Resources; Works and Transport as well as Culture and Tourism. During same period, was also assigned at various times to supervise the ministries of Health and Finance.
His leadership qualities especially in the area of disaster mitigation and mitigation began to manifest while he was in the state cabinet. Thus, he was credited to successful demolishing of unhealthy and defective structures that were hazardous to the people in Kaduna and was also responsible for the prompt and timely interventions of the state government in curtailing the spread of contagious diseases at a time.
He was at various time chaired the committees on decongestion of Kaduna metropolis; removal of carcasses in public places; decongestion of the federal high ways particularly Tafa and Mararaban Jos; and the cleaning and clearing of garbage in Zaria.
Prior to his appointment into the Kaduna State cabinet, he served as special Adviser to the Minister of Finance between 2003 to 2007 having been a senior manager in the then National Electric Power Authority.
Since his assumption of office as Director General NEMA, Sani-Sidi has enhanced the image of the agency as a forward looking, dynamic, strategic and proactive organization that is well positioned to address most challenges of disasters in Nigeria. A member of Institute of Civil Protection and Emergency Management (ICPEM), International Association of Emergency Managers (IAEM), The International Emergency Management Society (TIEMS), and the World Society of Victomology (WSV), he has received several commendation and awards including that from the Institute of Corporate Administration and the Conference on Disaster, Safety and Security Management and the award.
He also earned the African Business Leadership Award given to him and to NEMA as the Best Emergency and Disaster Management Agency of the year 2011 by African Leadership magazine. Furthermore, his outstanding performance earned NEMA the recognition and award of being the “Most outstanding public Institution in Nigeria” which was presented September 2011 by Independent Service Delivery Monitoring Group in collaboration with African Independent Television (AIT).
Recently, he was also nominated by the Leadership Newspaper and conferred with the award as the Leadership Public Officer of the year 2012.
Muhammad Sani Sidi who hails from Kaduna state has two Masters degrees in Business Administration (MBA) and in International Relations and Diplomacy (MIAD). He is married with children.
