The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), the agency that oversees and publishes statistics for Nigeria has a new Chief Executive Officer otherwise known as the Statistician-General of the Federation. And his name is Semiu Adeyemi Adeniran.
President Muhammadu Buhari on Friday approved his appointment after the death of Simon Harry who was in that position but died on April 13, 2022, of an undisclosed illness.
The new NBS boss has assumed office but he has a great task ahead of him. These tasks must be carried out properly. The agency he heads is primarily responsible for collecting, compiling, analyzing, interpreting, publishing, and disseminating statistical information relating to the socio-economic life and conditions of the people of Nigeria
The NBS relies on some agencies such as the National Planning Commission (NPC), Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Federal Ministry of Health, National Population Commission (NPC), Nigerian Stock Exchange (NSE), Federal Ministry of Finance, Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), for information.
Understandably, Adeniran is a reputable professional statistician specializing in hands-on statistics in Demography and Social Statistics and has over 30 years of hands-on statistical experience garnered from various local and international institutions.
Until his appointment, he was the Director of Demographic and Household Statistics at the NBS.
However, Nigerians will be expecting Adeniran to look into some critical areas such as – 1. How does he intend to build a statistical system conducive to high-quality economic development? 2. How will he organize the construction of statistical cloud infrastructure? 3. How will he advance information disclosure, data sharing, and statistical analysis and interpretation?. 4. How will he effectively manage data?
The new SGF must understand that data is the foundation of a country’s information, knowledge, and wisdom for correct decisions and actions.
If the data of a country is relevant, complete, accurate, meaningful, and actionable, it will help in the growth of the country economically
