Richardson Oil and Gas calls for disaster response awareness

The Chief Executive Officer of Richardson Oil and Gas Limited, Akin Osuntoki, has called for effective emergency and disaster response awareness to guard against unforeseen calamities.

Osuntoki, speaking in Lagos at this year’s conference of Process Safety Reliability Group (PSRG) USA and Richardson Oil and Gas (Nigeria), noted that disasters have a major and long-lasting impact on people after the immediate effect has been mitigated.

“We cannot stop disasters from occurring, but we can arm ourselves with knowledge so that many lives wouldn’t have to be lost if there was enough disaster preparedness”, he said.

According to him, the aim of emergency and disaster management is to establish an organisational structure and procedures for immediate response to major emergencies, in order to maintain life, improve health and support morale of the affected population until more permanent and sustainable solutions can be found.

“In an emergency, information must be treated like an important commodity just as the more traditional and tangible commodities like food, water and shelter”, he said.

While lamenting the damage disaster can cause to essential services like health care, electricity, water, sewage/garbage removal, transportation and communications, he said poorly planned relief activities could also have a significant negative impact not only on the disaster victims but also on donor and relief agencies.

He disclosed that the conference titled “Emergency Response and Disaster Management: Issues, Challenges and Solutions” which attracted top notch representatives from key sectors in and outside the Nigerian economy, provides avenue for practitioners to meet, discuss and analyse issues on Health, Safety, Security and Environment (HSEE) practices in their individual industries.

He added that it also provides opportunity to share industry challenges and proffer workable solutions to issues related to health, safety, security and environment.