Statistician General of the Federation on Thursday said the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) stood its ground to ensure there were no interferences from any government entity in the production process of the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP) report released recently.
TheNewsGuru (TNG) reports the NBS Boss, Dr. Yemi Kale stated this in a Business Insider live Twitter session where he talked about “Nigeria’s Fragile Economy” and said NBS under his watch has remained apolitical and independent of any kind of interference.
“Interference in the data production process cannot be allowed for any reason at all. NBS, under my watch, has remained apolitical and independent of any kind of interference.
As I’ve always said, I would rather quit the job than allow such interference under my watch,” he said.
He said the bureau has managed to ward of government inferences by sticking to ethos of statistical production and remaining professional in conduct and engagement with the political class
“All our staff, whether across the states or in the HQ in Abuja know this, and are fully aware of the consequences, so they don’t even try or entertain it,” the NBS Boss stated.
He went further to say, “One can understand that some people will feel that their sector performance isn’t been reported fairly etc, and as a result, they want to interfere with the data production process”.
“But we have always stood our ground to resist any such interference because if people trust the data, nothing else matters. And if they don’t trust the data, nothing else matters. In other words, data integrity is paramount”.
He added that “Once we start playing politics with the numbers, it’s a very slippery slope. And importantly, we also have reporting obligations to several international institutions that ensure that our data processes and methodologies etc are in line with international guidelines”.