By Chidi Ugwu
The Director General and Chief Executive Officer of the Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMet), Professor Charles Anosike has said that the agency’s partnerships with universities and other institutions of higher learning in Nigeria would benefit farmers and people living in agrarian communities.
Professor Anosike said this during the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between NiMet and Taraba State University on Thursday, 13th February 2025. According to him, “NiMet’s network of university partners is increasing. This adds to the weather and climate data available to us in addition to the data being generated by our agency-owned weather stations. These various data enrich the accuracy of our weather forecasts in fulfillment of our mandate. These ultimately benefit the local farmers and other users”.
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Professor Anosike concluded that the agency would continue to monitor the performances of the MoUs signed with universities and other higher institutions to ensure that all the parties are fulfilling their obligations.
Responding, the Vice Chancellor of Taraba State University, Professor Sunday Paul Bako said that the aim of partnering with NiMet is to be able to meet the needs of the immediate university community and the larger community which is agrarian. “We have departments of Geography, Agriculture, and others including Ecotourism at the Taraba State University that would benefit from the partnership and intervention. Our agricultural faculty runs extension programs so with the data generated from the weather station, we can raise awareness on sustainable farming and climate-smart practices”.
This MoU is for four (4) years and is renewable. The overall objective of the collaboration Is the promotion of activities relating to meteorology/climatology, and climate change in Nigeria, enhancing the capacity of the parties to provide relevant tools that will enhance the delivery of products and services to various sectors related to meteorology/climatology and climate change in Nigeria.
