President Muhammadu Buhari
has ordered the Statistician-General of the National Bureau of Statistics, Dr.
Yemi Kale, to change the high unemployment statistics on unemployment rate and
reflect the rising rate of employment in the agriculture sector.
The Senior Special
Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, said
this on Sunrise Daily, a programme on Channels Television.
Shehu said during a recent
meeting with the Federal Executive Council, Kale admitted that the NBS was only
focusing on the creation of white collar jobs and not the agriculture sector
and the informal sector.
He said the President
subsequently told him to go and admit his error to members of the public and
make appropriate changes.
When asked why job losses
were being recorded, Shehu said,
“There was a departure last
week. The NBS chief had addressed the federal cabinet and he made the admission
himself that they had concentrated analysis over time on white collar jobs and
they had not taken cognisance of job creation in areas of agriculture.
“Rice Producers Association
of Nigeria made the open claim and nobody has challenged them up until the time
that we speak, that they had created 12 million new jobs.
“When he finished
addressing the federal cabinet last week, the government asked the DG of the
NBS, go out there and tell the Nigerian public, you are just saying to us now
that Jigawa, Zamfara, Kebbi and Ebonyi are recording the lowest unemployment
rates in the country on account of agriculture.
“So, the point is that the
data collected which has formed judgement on the data that have been passed and
misleading and I think there is now a convergence. The data has been unfair to
the administration, it had ignored job creation in the areas of agriculture but
that is now being integrated and Nigerians will be impressed.”
However, a spokesman for
the Abubakar Atiku Campaign Organisation, Mr. Phrank Shuaibu, who was on the
programme, lambasted Shehu, accusing the Presidency of attempting to alter job
statistics on the eve of elections.
He said it seemed the
Presidency was trying to cow the NBS like it did to the West African
Examination Council when the registrar personally handed over a certificate to
Buhari at the Villa.
Shuaibu said,
“The National Bureau of
Statics came for EFC meeting and according to the President’s spokesman, the
man admitted that he miscalculated. That is an agency funded by government, not
an agency sponsored by any international organisation.
“He has forgotten that this
is not 1984. 2015 is not 1984. The world has gone digital but because they are
operating an analogue system of government, they don’t know that even a
10-year-old can use the internet to find out statistics.
“When the NBS came out with
the figures about loss of jobs and how it was affecting the economy, nobody
came out to defend the government. But just as the certificate issue was
managed, they have pushed the DG to the villa and obviously dictated to him
what he should say.
“You cannot say that a
government that is in power, the DG of NBS reeled out statistics, you did
nothing to him, many months after and because elections are here, on the eve of
elections, he is summoned to FEC and is asked to generate new figures. That is
a fallacious tale and an affront on the sensibilities of Nigerians and they
should apologise to us.”
Incidentally, the NBS has
failed to release the statistics on unemployment for over a year, citing lack
of funds as the reason.
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