Statistician-General: NBS Captures All Sectors in Unemployment Statistics *Threatens to resign if asked to tinker with data

The Statistician General of the Federation and Chief Executive, National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), Dr. Yemi Kale, has refuted a report that the presidency had asked him to doctor the country's unemployment/underemployment data billed to be released next Wednesday.

In a chat with some journalist he said the report was unfounded, adding that he would have resigned if asked to tinker with the data in order to favour the All Progressives Congress (APC) government.

The online report had alleged that President Muhammadu Buhari had during a recent meeting of the Federal Executive Council  (FEC) ordered Kale to change the high unemployment statistics and reflect the rising rate of employment in the agriculture sector.

However, Kale, while reacting to the report, told THISDAY that:

 ”You know this isn’t true. I would have resigned if it was true. Nobody asked me to do such.”

The Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) had last week indicated that the third quarter labour statistics- volume which captures unemployment and underemployment statistics would be released this week.

The much-anticipated jobs report is bound to heat up the political space especially at a period when the general election is approaching with political opponents trying to politicise whatever results in order to score political points as campaign intensifies.

The online report had quoted the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, while on a television programme as saying that during a recent meeting at the FEC, Kale had admitted that the NBS was only focusing on the creation of white collar jobs while ignoring positive developments in the agriculture and informal sectors of the economy.

According to Shehu as mentioned in the controversial report, the president subsequently told the SGF “ to go and admit his error to members of the public and make appropriate changes.”

The report alleged that some 12 million jobs created in the agriculture sector particularly in rice production in recent times, may not have been captured by the statistical agency in its final computation.

But providing further clarification on the matter, the NBS CEO, through his twitter handle @sgyemikale, maintained that neither he nor the NBS ever admitted that its employment and unemployment statistics had failed to accommodate some sectors of the economy.

He said study had always been all-encompassing of all sectors of the economy.

Tweeting in response to a question on the issue, Kale added: “Assuming what you claim was actually said, then I make it very clear that neither the statistician general nor NBS ever made such admission at any time to anybody, and the unemployment computations do take into account all sectors, age groups and rural and urban areas.”