65 firefighters and field marshals were trained by Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC) on Wednesday. The training was in safety, emergency response and firefighting techniques.
The training was organised in partnership with the Federal Fire Service (FFS) in Abuja.
Emmanuel Okupare, NUPRC, Acting Assistant Director of Safety Control speaking at the training, said the training was necessary due to the need to raise safety awareness in relation to global happenings and insecurity.
According to Okupare, internal training is primarily aimed at how to respond to emergencies. It has its focuses on building and workplace safety aspects and how to ensure the safety of all staff.
The drill is intended to educate marshals on how to ensure safety in an emergency. It will also educate them on how to safely evacuate and collect people within designated collection points.
“There are a lot of things happening in the world presently, insecurity is growing, so those saddled with this responsibility need to know what to do during emergencies.
“There are basic equipment we use for responding to emergencies like the Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation (CPR) method and Automated External Defibrillator (AED) which can be deployed in the offices in case of emergency situations,” he said.
Okpale, while describing the training as a global best practice, urged companies and organisations to imbibe awareness and preparedness on emergency response and equally adopt NUPRC’s method in order to save lives.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the training featured some FCT Fire Marshals, who exposed the personnel to the real term emergency situation, roles of fire marshals, emergency fire-fighting drills and practical emergency response.
Speaking on “Behavior Best Safety Culture and Combustion” Mr Ibrahim Muhammad, Superintendent of Fire and Public Relations Officer, FCT Fire Service dwelt on how to improve people’s safety consciousness.
“In trying to do that you have to make them imbibe safety culture to change their behavior towards safety conscious. One has to observe and put safety first in order not to cause injury to others.
“You can change your present attitude where you work to be more safety conscious and ensure you have the knowledge of safety. While you are doing it make sure you follow the standard operating procedure of every assignment given.
“You must know the administrative way by training people, engineering control and by using Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) which include helmets, safety boots and gloves among others to be safe against hazards,” he said.
He advised other organisations and agencies that would like to indulge in similar training not to limit their staff to only training but to organise and put in their calendars a safety week annually for training.
This, he said, would expose them to all aspects of hazards at the workplace and home, which would be well disseminated to spur safety consciousness.
According to him, because of the activities of different organisations, some need basic training while some, especially those in the oil and gas sector need to extend it to other aspects because of oil and gas fire.
