Abuja – The Nigerian Statistical Association (NSA) has called for the establishment of the Bureau of Statistics in Osun to coordinate the collection of statistics in the state.
The President of the association, Dr Mohammed Tumala, said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.
“We recommended to the state to establish a State Bureau of Statistics so that the Bureau can be held responsible for coordination.
“We recommended to that state that it should motivate the staff responsible for the collection of statistics because over time, staff members of the department of Planning, Research and Statistics both at state, national and local government levels have seen their posting very punitive.
“Work still going on, we are going to work with the staff members in that state to clearly draw up their job descriptions and so on and train them.
“Let them own job descriptions so that existing employees and those that will be employed in the future will know what their responsibilities are and the products they are supposed to provide.’’
Tumala said that NSA held its 2015 annual conference in the state and decided to carry out an assessment of the statistical system in the state.
He said the assessment was done from Oct 2015 to Feb 2016 and that the report has been submitted to the State Governor.
The official said part of findings from the report was that the state had not published it official statistics since 2006.
He said that the association had also brought it to the notice of the governor, Rauf Aregbesola for the state to establish a vibrant statistical system.
He said: “Our key findings are that Osun is a state with a peculiar statistical system on ground.
“It has a well set up system that has an office, responsible for the collection of statistics and
all its MDAs have their departments have offices of Planning, Research and Statistics and most of them are well staffed.
“We did found out that Osun has over 300 Statisticians in its employments and also have
other employees that are providing supportive services to the statistician.
“The question is that why was the system not functioning? The system didn’t function, that system didn’t function for so many reasons.
“Lacking of coordination or even the officers themselves, lacking basic knowledge of what of what they ought to do, even an outright refusal to do things they ought to do.’’
He said that the state had good system in terms of the structure and human resources, noting that it was just like a new car packed that needed a driver.
We are discharging our responsibility as the association that promote the statistical skill around the country.
The president, however, said that the association had been raising awareness on statistical issues in the country.
NSA was founded in 1976 as a non-profit making professional body of statisticians, economists, planners, demographers, analysts and corporate organisations with interest in statistics.
It provides sound information base to enhance policy formulation and strategic planning in the public and private sectors of the national economy.(NAN
