The North-East Zonal Coordinator of the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), Alhaji Abdulsalam Muhammed Badamasi, has died in Maiduguri, Borno State.
NEMA confirmed his death on Friday, October 6, 2017, describing the development as sudden and expressing shock over the loss of the senior official.
The agency’s Head of Media and Public Relations, Sani Datti, said the deceased had been redeployed to Maiduguri about three weeks earlier to take charge of NEMA’s North-East operations.
Before his redeployment, Abdulsalam had served as the agency’s North-Central Zonal Coordinator in Jos, Plateau State. He had also worked in other capacities within NEMA, including as a Deputy Zonal Coordinator in other parts of the country.
Reports at the time indicated that Abdulsalam had been found unconscious in his room at a hotel in Maiduguri after reportedly collapsing. A separate account said he had been taken to a hospital but later died.
The circumstances surrounding his death were not officially detailed by NEMA in its announcement. However, reports said he had attended a meeting with officials of the World Food Programme (WFP) on Thursday, a day before his death.
His death came barely weeks after he assumed responsibility for NEMA’s North-East operations, an area at the time heavily affected by the humanitarian consequences of the Boko Haram insurgency.
In the weeks preceding his death, Abdulsalam had been involved in the coordination and distribution of relief materials, including Federal Government emergency interventions in parts of the region.
The Director-General of NEMA, Engineer Mustapha Maihaja, expressed shock over the sudden death and extended condolences to the deceased’s family and colleagues.
Datti said the agency prayed for the repose of Abdulsalam’s soul and asked Allah to grant his family the strength to bear the loss.
The remains of the late coordinator were subsequently buried in Maiduguri, according to reports at the time.
Abdulsalam’s death was widely described as a loss to NEMA, coming at a period when the agency was playing a major role in coordinating humanitarian assistance and emergency response across the conflict-affected North-East.
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