Technocrat Media, Abuja
Semiu Adeniran, the newly appointed Statistician-General of the Federation, says the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) will expand its scope to produce data on migration, Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), and security.
Mr Adeniran announced this commitment during his Oath of Office and Secrecy ceremony at the NBS headquarters in Abuja on Wednesday.
According to the News of Agency of Nigeria (NAN), he said this had become necessary for NBS’s data to be relevant to the times and reflect the current situation in the country.
The NBS boss noted that expanding the scope of data would ensure the delivery of its mandate of producing “relevant and adequate” information for policy decision-making.
He added that it would also mean that NBS was contributing its quota of solutions to the challenges being faced by the country.
“As the role of national statistics offices across the world expands in the modern-day data ecosystem, we will focus on building our capacity to produce further insight and knowledge base.
” We will also expand the scope of our statistical product to reflect the recent development in the macro and socio-development space.
“In this light, in the coming months, we will begin the process of producing statistics on new areas such as migration, IDPs, and data on security.
” All these are issues currently on the front burner of the political sphere and prominent in the hearts of citizens and policymakers, hence we need to play our role as the authoritative source of official data in this regard.
He said the tenure of the Statistician-General was impactful, though brief, as he committed to consolidating his achievement.
He said the legacy of the late NBS boss was synonymous with hard work, compassion, dedication, and development for his fellow man regardless of race, tribe and creed.
” We will go forward together in line with the three-point agenda set by Dr S.B Harry, namely general administration and human resources management, infrastructure development, and sound technical operations.
“I will seek to consolidate on the achievement he recorded. The current structure of the office will be maintained and where possible improved on as the need arises. ”
He said efforts would be made to ensure the bureau delivered on its mandate.
“Hence our initial focus will be on strengthening our technical operations by enhancing staff capacity to accurately produce, disseminate and interpret statistics to inform policy design in Nigeria.”
Adeniran said the capacity enhancement would be done through organised training and courses both locally and internationally, on-the-job learning, and in-house coaching by a knowledgeable staff of the office.
He added that where necessary, external experts will be contacted to provide support to the staff of the bureau.
According to him, this is aimed at closing existing technical gaps already identified across the departments.
“This will also expand existing capacity to ensure that as a system, we are able to cope adequately with the ever-increasing demand for data. ”
The new NBS boss added that efforts would be made to improve the general orientation and philosophy of staff members through change in managerial courses and orientation programmes offered by the Administrative Staff College of Nigeria and other renowned institutions.
Mr Adeniran said the bureau would accelerate its ongoing work with the World Bank in revising its methodology for producing Labour Force Statistics in Nigeria.
” This is very important as it will ensure that we move to a system where we generate, on a sustainable basis, adequate quarterly statistics on the labour market in Nigeria, to inform the government on their job creation efforts.”
He said in the coming weeks, the bureau would begin the process of rebasing the Consumer Price Index and reweighting the consumption basket.
“As we all know, the rebasing of the Gross Domestic Estimates is also one that has been talked about in recent times.
“With the ongoing National Agriculture Sample Census, which is intended to serve as a major input to the process, we will ensure that both NASC and all other surveys and administrative data collection efforts were completed successfully in preparation for the rebasing sometime next year. ”
Until his appointment, Adeniran was the Director of Demographic and Household Statistics at the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
Adeniran who was born in Oyo State has for the past 30 years been a professional statistician of repute.
Mr Adeniran who has served on no fewer than 10 presidential committees, attended the Polytechnic Ibadan and proceeded to OAU and Oxford University in the UK.
(NAN)
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