Unemployment: NBS Disowns Spokesman For Describing Kale As Worst Statistician General

The National Bureau of Statistics has disown the comment made by the head of Communications and Public Relations Department, Wakili Ibrahim for attacking a former Statistician General, Dr Yemi Kale.

NBS released its Labour Force Survey which puts Nigeria’s unemployment rate at 4.1 per cent in first quarter 2023 using the ILO standard.

The report was largely criticised over the manner at which the figures fell from 33.3 per cent in fourth quarter of 2020.

Kale during an interview on Arise TV criticised the new methodology adopted by the Bureau.

The NBS reviewed the number of hours of work per week to be considered as employment to just an hour from 20 hours.

But Kale said he had, for ten years, resisted the pressure to adopt the methodology which he said does not reflect the true position of unemployment in the country.

He said, “I resisted (to change the model for unemployment methodology) for 10 years because it did not make any sense in terms of providing the information that our policymakers need.”

Replying Kale, Ibrahim argued that the former NBS Boss was wrong in his comment on the new methodology.

Ibrahim said, “The new methodology is internationally accepted. All our neighbouring countries in Africa are using the new methodology of one hour. When he was there it was 40 hours. Ask him (Yemi Kale) why it was changed from 40 to 20 hours during his own time. Now, it is one hour.

“The world is changing. In high-tech countries, if you work for one hour, you can earn what somebody in a bank cannot earn in one year because of IT. Look at lecturers; a lecturer can go lecture for one or two hours, and they will pay him about N200,000 or N300,000 in one or two hours. So, what is the basis of ignoring those ones?”

In a release of Tuesday, the NBS said Ibrahim’s views does not reflect the views of the NBS.

NBS said its attention has been “drawn to the response of a senior member of the Communication and Public Relations Department of the Bureau in a newspaper publication published on 28th August, 2023, to an interview given by the former Statistician-General of the Bureau, in respect of the recently released Quarter 4, 2022 and Quarter 1, 2023 Nigeria Labour Force Survey results.

“We wish to categorically state that the reaction of that individual to the interview granted by the former Statistician-General are his personal views and do not represent that of the Bureau.

“In this regard, Management of the Bureau wishes to dissociate from the response of the individual as published in the paper and the issues raised therein in its entirety.”