The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), on the 6th of March 2014, released rebased figures that almost double previous estimates for Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and have seen Nigeria leapfrog South Africa to become the biggest economy on the African continent and 26th largest in the world.
However, this feat is not without its challenges and other peculiar Nigerian factors. In this interview, the Statistician General of Federation and Chief Executive Officer, National Bureau of Statistics, Dr Yemi Kale, highlights some of these challenges as well as some other achievements of the Bureau. Excerpts:
As an agency for gathering statistics, what actually does this entail besides data collection?
Our functions are clearly stated in our statistics law, which makes us responsible for the collection and interpretation of data across the country. It involves all types of data except population data which, of course, is done by the Population Commission. In addition, we are responsible for coordinating Nigeria statistical system.
This includes all those that are involved in statistical processed that includes production, dissemination, supply and usage of data. So Nigeria Bureau of Statistics is the authoritative source of data in the country as well as the custodian of all official data. Any data that is not produced or certified by the Nigeria Bureau of Statistics ceases to be treated as official. In a situation where somebody will just make for policies of programs, government is not allowed to use it without the NBS saying it is a correct data.
The objective of data is that it serves as an adviser to policy makers and to the government. You have to understand what the current situation is at any particular instance. For example, the major challenge Nigeria has is unemployment but to solve unemployment you have to know how many people are unemployed.
You have to know what their qualifications are, are they male or female and how many people are entering the job market on a periodic basis, how many jobs have been created and in what sectors? When you now have that information, all you do is to send to policy makers. Based on that, they can now design policy to tackle the problem of unemployment.
Do you think Nigerians are making the best use of your office?
I will say since the last two years, it has increased significantly but whether people are making significant use of our office, I will say no! There are two reasons I must be frank because I will not sit here and tell you that the NBS is now a world class statistical office. There is a significant progress in the last two years but we still have a lot of work to do to iget things going forward.
How do you get your data?
We have offices in every state of the federation. The staff there collect data on regular basis which we process at the headquarter. We have over 3,000 staff across the country. Their job is to go and gather data from households, from establishments, they bring the data and we analyse it. The quality of that information depends on the quality of data you receive from the field.
How much awareness do the people in the villages have concerning your activities?
It will surprise you that our biggest challenge is not in the villages. The respondents that give us the biggest problems are the city people that have gone to school and speak plenty of English and can argue with you. The villagers are very welcoming; they cooperate when you explain what you want. They see you and offer you food and they are happy to answer your questions.
They don’t give us problem. We get more of our problems in the urban areas where people you go to get information from have very big gates with guards at the door and you need to talk to the head of the house to get information. Of course, he believes he is a big man, and won’t come down because you might be interviewing him for 20 minutes.
Most people quote information and survey from UNICEF or WHO and not you. How often do you release information?
Any information you get from any international office, they get it from this office because they work with us. These people did not generate data outside Nigeria, they have to come to Nigeria and count. So, if you hear anybody says this and he did not come to Nigeria, it shows that he is using a model and using a model cannot tell you the reality on ground. You cannot predict what is happening at every corner of Nigeria from America.
Whether the World Bank, UNICEF, IMF or WHO, they have to come and partner with us. If they don’t have the money, we give them the money and they work with us to get the information together. It is only recently that we are saying that we collaborated with them on the work. We are the official mouth piece of government data.
What are your key challenges?
Our key challenges are funding. I have to admit that the funding of data has increased significantly. Government has been supporting a lot more than before, I think just because they realized they need data to be able to plan.
Secondly, the amount of attention on Nigeria is huge. Everybody is asking questions and we have to provide information whether we like it or not. I think the combination of those two things, some endogenous and exogenous, is making a lot of people pay attention to statistics. In advanced countries like America, where things are done electronically, their budget is 200 times more than ours, even South Africa’s budget in about 50 times more than ours.
Someone will tell me they are doing a lot of things in Rwanda Statistics Office and I will say the population of Rwanda is about five million which is smaller than Abuja. It has to collect data on five million people and I have to collect data on 170 million across different local governments. If you have a system where you don’t have enough money to gather enough data you want; you have to be more creative in selecting certain types of data.
Then, the interpretation of the data is where I have the greatest challenge. People interprete data for political reasons; for or against. You see somebody accepting our poverty figures but not accepting our rebased GDP.
The other one is accepting our rebased GDP and not accepting our poverty level and I always ask that the few numbers we have produced is in the same office. Why are we competent with this one and not the other one? It depends on where you politicize it. We are not going to be involved in that. Vanguard
