By Ikenna Asomba

The Director-General/Chief Executive Officer, Nigerian Meteorological Agency (NiMET), Dr. Anthony Anuforom, on Monday,  declared that the agency was having an aging work-force,  thus the need for conducting series of training and retraining courses for the younger work-force of the agency.

NiMET boss, Dr. Anthony Anuforom, officials and participants at the event

Anuforom who made this known at the NiMET Refreshers Course for Medium Level Technicians/Observers, held at its Training Centre in Oshodi, Lagos, said since coming on board as DG, the agency has been paying enough focus on training and retraining of its younger work-force.

He said: “These series of training and retraining of our work-force is imperative because the job we do is a high skilled job, not one that anybody can just jump into. Some of the participants here came into NiMET with a minimum of O’ level certificate. But it has taken us two years to train you on data collection, observation, forecast, among others in line with international best practices.

“These trainings are important because for those of you who work in the airport, if the data you collect are wrong, everything will go wrong.”

Aging work-force

Decrying the agency’s aging work-force, the DG, however said: “Many of our work-force in NiMET are unavoidably retiring because of age and the compulsory 35 years length of service. That is why we are training you the young ones. This year alone, we are losing about 72 staff and majority of them are the meteorological technologists who will retire between now and December. So, our strategy is to fastrack the process of preparing you for the sensitive tasks ahead.

“We are also given emphasis on training and retraining because the coding system in meteorology is changing very fast. So, for you to be abreast of the current realities, we have to embark on this retraining system which I introduced four years ago, when I came on board.

“So far,  about 207 Observers have benefited from this retraining and they are Hydrogen Observers and forecasters. Also, in this Batch today, we have selected 33 of you drawn from different locations in the country, and by the time we finish this Refreshers Course, we would have trained about 240 observers.”

Anuforom, who expressed optimism that the participants would at the end of the course be further enlightened about meteorology, however urged the participants to shun acts culpable of bringing the agency to disrepute.

He said:  “For us as an agency, we have initiated commercial strategies to boost our IGR, but if our works are not commercialisable we won’t be patronized. So, try as much as possible to be serious in your work, so that the data we get can be trusted by our clients and they will in turn patronise us.”

Earlier, the Ag. Director (Research and Training), NiMET, Oshodi, Jide Adefuye, urged the participants to be steadfast during the refreshers course, adding that the DG must be commended for visiting the centre twice since in two months.