By Joyce Remi-Babayeju
A Former Senator under the All Progressives Congress, APC, Shehu Sani has said that successive governments in Nigeria are guilty of making policies and promises based on sentiments instead of the use of the National Statistics and adequate data.
Shehu Sani who spoke in Abuja at the National Stakeholders’ Workshop on the Production of National Strategy for the Development of Statistics , NSDS Phase 111( 2024-2028), organized by by the National Bureau of Statistics, NBS, emphasized the need for every citizen to have adequate knowledge of data so they can hold policy makers accountable.
Sen. Sani in his goodwill message commended NBS for giving necessary data needed for development.
He said, ” All new governments in the country have rituals of unfolding agendas – now we have the 7 point Agenda government.”
New governments come up with promises of providing education, security , health , transportation, but in all these speeches what they have being missing out is the use of the needed data to execute their policies. So most speeches are based on sentiments. If you are not guided by statistics ,you cannot do the right thing.”
The Kaduna based politician, asked why the weekly Federal Executive Council, FEC, would meet without the Director General of NBS, the Chief Statistician sitting with them to give the needed data for informed policies and national development.
He said, ” l am most interested in gathering statistics, as a country of about 243 million people, for national development, the use of national data gathered by NBS cannot be overemphasized.”
The British High Commissioner, Richard Montgomery , commended the NBS for the step and noted that the NSDS meeting is reliable source for the production of reliable statistics for national development.
He said that good statistics is critical to policy formulation, development and business planning.
He promised that the UK government would support the drive by NBS for a national statistics system for Nigeria.
“And we will continue to support the next phase of statistics development in Nigeria.’
According to him, in times past the UK office for National Statistics has helped the National Population Commission, NPopC to develop statistics to pull out census results and to improve on it. These are some of the proves to support statistical capacity development to support Nigeria.
Former Director General of Nigeria Maritime Administration and Safety Agency Dakuku Petersde said that Statistics is the science of uncertainty in political development compass.
“I want to emphasize the need for a scientific national development statistics for the country .Statistics enables us to understand the complexity of society.”
“Statistics is the compass that guides us on policies for national planning. Infact without statistics we cannot be talking of national planning.”
“The global foundation for statistics in Nigeria is not merely a suggestion but it is a imperative .
Accurate data is important for economic activities.”
Peterside emphasized that Data is critical for climate statistics as it is important for the development of national planning, adding that Statistics is a choice for transparency,
Director General of National Centre for Technology Management management and Technology – Dr. Olusola Odusanya noted that Data is adequate when it is relevant and accessible, adding that Data must pass through systematic and analytical relevance.
