DR. Danjuma Almustafa is a UNICEF Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist in this interview, he regrets that the near absence of data keeping culture in Nigeria, is hindering the general development of the country.

Mustafa also disclosed that the Millenium Development Goals,MDGs, are threatened in Nigeria. He also spoke on these and other issues to CHARLES KUMOLU and CHIOMA OBINNA

WE have so many data. Do you think the Nigerian government are making use of this data?

Nigerian government and our policy makers do not have respect for data. In my view, Once in every four years, there is what we call National Demographic and Health Survey(NDHS) and if you go to the website of Federal Bureau of Statistics, National Bureau of Statistics, they have a gross body of data but when you look at the budget, plans, policy, you cannot connect them with any of these data. So the data is just there lying hallow and nobody is using them and the government is there doing its thing without gross data.

What are the implications of this ?

We are not evidence guided and so we just base our decisions on guesses and estimates. So, nobody should be surprised that we don’t hit the target in our policies.

For instance, nobody should be surprised if we do not hit any MDG by 2015 because our plans are not based on evidence “It is just like taking off on a journey without asking yourself what it would take or cost to get you to your destination”. No guidance! Its like navigating on the sea without a compass.

Are you saying that the current situation may affect Nigeria’s efforts at meeting the MDGs?

Yes! That is exactly what I am saying. We need to, we want to have the number of people living below the poverty line in 2015. Now, do we have hard core trend worthy data on people living below the poverty line in Nigeria? Yes, we do! Government is aware of this but does it contribute to policy formulations to achieve that goal? I doubt it.

And as it is with poverty so it is with malnutrition, maternal and child mortality. So, at this rate , I am afraid we might not meet the MDGs by 2015.

Generally there is scarcity of reliable data. In some other places, if you enter a community and you are staying for longer than you need to, you must register at the local government.

It is easy, you just have to go there to fill a form so that the people in the community can have an accurate data of people living in the community at a particularly time, but we do not do that, so we do not have the statistics/data and it is the function of the governments the world over t o have regular statistical survey.

Now, when international organisations knew that the Nigerian government was not doing so, they wander how we have been planning with no base line data. They decided to help us but they cannot do it as thoroughly and comprehensively as they would have loved to and we ourselves need to.

You find out that we still have data, enough data for us to write fantastic and influential news stories. NBS have data on their website, if offices liaise with UNICEF, they can get regular supply of data too.

So, what is the way forward?

We indicated multiple survey- once in three year or four year survey. We tried to reach the whole country but we were not able to do so thoroughly. My recommendation is that the Nigerian government must work with Nigerian statistical organisations and should empower the Federal Office of Statistics (NBS) to conduct these studies more regularly and comprehensively.

The Federal Ministry of Health as well as the state ministry of health have statistical offices. Now if they can involve the Local Government and empower the officers to coordinate these surveys then we can have results on a more regular basis than just once in four years and do not also have to wait on the international organisations for data.

Though data driven reports are rare, I’ve been quite impressed by the few I have read. Some are written by the staff of the organisations who have background, not in statistics. Some are written by NAAN.

I wonder and I believe that if these people could be trained, in addition to the kind of passion and commitment that they have, then we can have fantastic stories coming out of data, stories that will influence people positively.

There is a lot of room for improvement, I won’t go as far as to say that Nigerian journalists are bad when it comes to using data. If one is given little then little is required of the person as well. Many people have taken a lot of initiatives just to use data even when they have little or no training and that should be commended.

What is the place of the academia in this?

We have misplaced priorities in the academia. For example, if one wants to be promoted in Ibadan then his work must be published in an academic journal and reviewed books. It does not matter if your research has saved one life out there.

If you do a research that has led to a widespread adoption of some thing and people’s lives are saved, the university does not count much on that, the question remains “Is this thing published in a recognised journal”? If you publish your work in a news paper, even if it helps, you still are not rewarded.

So, universities have to start thinking of being more engaged with the community and socially relevant and one way of being relevant is by finding a way to disseminate research information in a way that reaches journalists, the farmer out there and even the man on the road.

Even if we are not equipped to do that then we can place this in the media, in publications, in a language that journalists can engage then put in the popular media like news papers and others. That is one way I think the university needs to re-address its focus. I think that is very key and that there are data somewhere(NBS, UNICEF).