Professor of Statistics at the University of Ilorin, Peter Osanaiye, has advocated an immediate review of national and state statistics master plan to conform with morden statistical system.
He regretted that despite efforts in the past supported by world bank, ECOWAS and the European Union (EU) to strengthen Nigeria’s statistical capacity, the country is still struggling with a weak system which could not be relied on for data and planning. .
Osanaiye who is of the department of statistics stated this in the 205th inaugural lecture of the University of Iloriin which he delivered titled “Quality blended statistics- A veritable tool for universal breakthrough”. He identified bottlenecks such as “weak infrastructures ,inadeqaute human resources, insufficient financial resources , duplication of data sources and poor coordination” among others as banes of Nigeria’ s statistical system.
To record a breakthrough, the university teacher said, “every country needs timely reliable, independent, trust worthy, comparable and available statistics to describe social, demographic , economic and environmental conditions which create knowledge for planning and development that is natiionaly produced.”Emphasizing the significance of statistics as a veritable tool for quality breakthrough, the statistician said, “all policy /decision makers, planners, officers involved in monitoring and evaluation and other officers who use statistics in their day to day work should be made to be statistically literate to enable its efficient use.”Similarly, he said, “All officers involved in handling data management in thier day to day activities being in the private sectors, being it manufacturing, service, civil societies, NGOs or any other type of organisation should essentially be literate in Quality and Statistics.”
