The Statistician-General of Nigeria, Prince Adeyemi Adeniran, has tasked Civil Society Organizations to disseminate accurate information on the rebasing of Nigeria’s GDP and CPI.

Speaking at the sensitization workshop with heads of Civil Society Organisations ( CSO) in Abuja on Monday, the SGS said the result of the newly rebased figures will be out on Friday.

Prince Adeniran said the role of NBS to promote the correct statistical data cannot be overemphasized “As the agents of change in the society, you are as well duty bound to share correct information to the people at grassroots on aims and motive of rebasing the economy which is the bedrock for a meaningful plan by authorities effectively manage the economy”

The SG advocated for more interactive sessions with the CSOs and said that all relevant stakeholders would be carried along in all the bureau’s activities.

“We will have more engagements with you to correct all misinformation on data collection with the inclusion of hidden activities such as dealings in narcotics,” he said.

The NBS boss noted with concern how some people misrepresented facts on the earlier sensitation, especially on the inclusion of hidden activities, by claiming that NBS wanted to include prostitution, kidnappings, etc, in its data.

“Let me make it clear that the data we got from NDLEA was the destruction of narcotics and it is very insignificant as it represents only about 0.01% of the data collected which is negligible and could not necessarily change anything even if we decided to exclude it,” he said.

During the questions and answer session, the SG spoke unequivocally that the level of consumption and or expenditure based on gender was not a medium of weighing spending in CPI “Both males and females are considered as consumers and good or otherwise in the economy affects all without discrimination”

A participant who wanted to know why it took the agency a long time to conduct a new rebasing exercise was told that the exercise should ideally be conducted every five years, but it has been challenging as no African country has successfully done that because of the huge resources the exercise requires

“I wish to confirm to you that we did something extraordinary by rebasing both the GDP and CPI at the same time which was a rigorous assignment”

The heads of GDP and CPI at the bureau, Mr Moses Waniko and Dr Ayo Andrew Anthony, presented the methodology of the current rebasing, which was kicked start in 2023 with inputs from national and international bodies,, including the Central Bank of Nigeria, World Bank, and IMF among others.