The Ministry of Budget and National Planning on Monday urged Nigerians to maximize the use of available data in nigeria for various economic and societal implementations and projections.
Speaking at the 2024 African Statistics Day celebration in Abuja, themed โSupporting Education by Modernizing the Production of Fit-for-Purpose Statistics,โ the Minister, Atiku Bagudu, emphasized the authenticity of Nigerian data.
Bagudu warned that relying on data from other countries rather than Nigeria could hinder investment opportunities due to potential misrepresentation.
He stressed that data generated by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) is independent of government influence and reliable enough to prevent miscommunication.
โToday, the market power of Amazon or Google determines what I buy. When COVID unfortunately struck the world, we saw data companies that were showing data about the movement of people.
โAnd it just shows that in a way, sorry to use this word, maybe data imperialism is still very active in the sense that some companies or some countries have an undue advantage when it comes to data generation and the way that data is presented.
โSo I understand that we also need to recognize this and to compensate for it so that we are also using data in a way that we are telling our story.
โAnd one of those stories that I would like to end with because itโs important to my portfolio, is there an objective way of determining how much investment a country of 230 million requires to have a good life for everyone? I believe there is. We canโt find it.โ
โThe sanctity of data is the watchword in Nigeria under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. We have recognized it as a government and given independence to the National Bureau of Statistics.
โWe have never sought to interfere in any way, shape, or form with the coordination, timing, and even where some of us from an intellectual perspective want to engage in methodology debate, we make sure that we say it openly and transparently so that there will be no miscommunication as to what we are doing,โ Bagudu said.
The Statistician-General of the Federation, Adeyemi Adeniran, also highlighted the recent conclusion of the first Annual Conference of the newly established Chartered Institute of Statisticians of Nigeria (CISON) as a deliberate move to address the data gap in Nigeria.
Adeniran stated that the NBS has adopted the mantra of innovation to remain relevant in meeting its mandate.
According to him, this aligns with the African Development Bankโs Data Innovation Lab initiative and the Roadmap for the Transformation and Modernization of Official Statistics in Africa, championed by the African Centre for Statistics.
โAccordingly, we have set up a Data Innovation Desk within the Bureau to advance, monitor, and track all data innovation initiatives across our production and dissemination processes.
โThis can be seen in all aspects of our work, be it in the data we produce and the methodology we adopt, in the way we plan for our surveys, the way we collect and process the data, the way we report and disseminate information, and most of all, in the way in which we communicate the data to the public.
โAll of this is in a bid to ensure that we provide the right data, which is a critical tool for development, to all our users in a timely manner and in a way that is useful and suited to their needs,โ he said.
The United Nations Childrenโs Fund (UNICEF) Education Manager, Mr. Jutaro Sakamioto, described education as a crucial investment that empowers individuals with skills for success, drives economic and social development, and benefits society through higher tax revenues, reduced crime, and stronger democracy.
He emphasized that education must be prioritized.
He added: โThis is the reason why so many countries in the world put education as the top national priority. The potential of education investment is particularly high in Nigeria where the child population is increasing at a rapid pace.โ
Sakamioto noted that Nigeria faces significant education challenges, including a large number of out-of-school children and poor learning outcomes.