THE defunct Federal Office of Statistics, FOS, which is the apex data producing agency in Nigeria since 1947, is believed to have failed to meet its mandate of producing adequate, accurate and timely data needed for decision making.

This is evident in its non-production of relevant statistics for planning policy formulation, implementation, monitoring and evaluation, or, at best, the production of data that are untimely and often without any iota of doubt.

This lack of performance on the part of the FOS has raised concerns on how best to have a reliable data base agency in Nigeria. CHARLES KUMOLU and CHIOMA OBINNA report

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 yourself 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 but Nigeria does not do that so we do not have the statistics/data and it is the function of the government the world over to do regular statistical survey,” it is on this note that UNICEF Planning, Monitoring and Evaluation Specialist, Dr. Danjuma Almustafa raised the alarm about the near absence of data keeping culture in Nigeria.

And any attempt to puncture Almustafa’s regrets, was not successful, as the slow pace of the country’s development since 1960, provides a glimpse of how our publicc office holders and policy makers attitude have been towards data keeping. This in no small way, has affected Africa’s most populous nation.

For instance, Nigeria ranks among the countries with the highest rates of infant and child mortality, second highest poverty rates in the world, second highest road accident rate, the second lowest life expectancy in the world among others..

In addition, the country has an army of unemployed youths.

These, Vanguard Features,VF, gathered is a fallout of the absence of a data base in Nigeria which has made it more difficult for effective planning and the creation of social order to address these grim statistics.

Instructively, data mining simply involves extracting and analysing data in order to discover trends, patterns and correlations. Unfortunately, data collection is faced with diverse problems in Nigeria.

Perhaps, it was the need to address the problems faced by the absence of accurate data keeping culture, that informed the establishment of The National Bureau of Statistics, NBS.

According to reports, this agency came into being with the merger of the Federal Office of Statistics (FOS) and the National Data Bank (NDB).

“The creation is part of the implementation of the Statistical Master Plan (SMP), a programme document of the Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN). The document’s preparation was funded by the World Bank in 2003,” the report noted.

In addition, it maintained that “The implementation is designed to span five years, 2005-2009. The FOS, which had been the apex data producing agency of Government in Nigeria since 1947, had failed to meet its mandate of producing adequate, accurate and timely data needed for decision making.

Falling into decay in much of the 1990s, the agency’s performance got to its lowest ebb between 2000 and 2003.”

This was also corroborated by Mustafa, who told VF that data collection is faced with so many problems today because in most cases its importance is not emphasised.

“Data collection no doubt is a complex process that involves the use various statistical methods and sophisticated computers; in most cases it requires constant update from time to time.

In the comity of nations, only developed countries continuously emphasise and use data for the growth and development planning. Despite the importance of data, most developing countries including Nigeria still pay lip service to the use of data for such endeavours,” he noted.

And this has accounted for the conflicting data reports about issues in Nigeria.

In fact, it was discoverd that in some cases, where data was available, it could be misrepresented or misleading, VF gathered.

This played out on February 15, 2009 when former First Lady, Turai Yar’Adua, disputed the gloomy picture and data on maternal mortality and death of new born presented at the launch of the 2009 State of the World Children Report in Abuja.

She disputed those figures based on what she observed on a few occasion she visited the National Hospital, Abuja . According to her, no woman lost her life as a result of child birth during her visits.

To a large extent, this has indicated that the issue poses greater challenges in Nigeria.

Until recently, it was gathered that most data released by government agencies in Nigeria were usually outdated, hence they were irrelevant for researchers and businesses because they do not cover recent periods.

It is against this backdrop, that a retired top civil servant in the defunct Federal Office of Statistics,FOS, Chief Micheal Okwuenu(not real mames), said that “even now it is not news to key into government databases and find them replete with data that is too far backward to be relevant to current decision making.

The data are sometimes delayed in publication and they are not made available when needed by other agencies.”

This however reveals the priority placed in the use of data by the government and its agencies.

Besides the problem of outdated data, VF checks revealed that the alleged manipulation of existing available data has also been a problem in Nigeria.

This alleged manipulation of current available data is misleading and has not helped in planning for the future .

However, experts have stressed that investment in research and development should be supported by the Nigerian government through the establishment of research centres fully equipped with modern equipment, trained and experienced personnel in schools, colleges of education and universities around the country.

In addition, it was gathered that there is also the need to create a profile and detailed information on each citizen in the country and storing such information in a secured database.

This, experts noted would be realised by giving the private sector the opportunity to take part in the provision of public data, in order to reduce the over dependence on one sole government agency for the provision of data of various forms.

According to reports, Nigeria has few recognised agencies which collect and accumulate personal information of citizens both within and outside the country.

“Unfortunately, most of the records are usually based on estimates. Keen observers are worried that the problem of data has become so bad that Nigeria cannot boast of any record any where even in the hospital record departments. Due to the fragmented records, government agencies have no holistic record of the names, address, occupation, location, records of place of birth, finger prints and other relevant record of citizens.

The absence of these vital information has made it difficult to track progress even in the areas the country will be said to be doing well,” the report noted.

For instance, while the Federal Road Safety Commission (FRSC) laments the unavailability of data for effective control of under-age driving, experts in the business circle regret the absence of reliable data as the bane of planning in Nigeria.

In the views of the President, Nigerian Institute of Town Planners, Mr. Kabir Yari, one of the biggest challenges the country is facing is the issue of accommodating rapid demographic growth in Nigeria.

He said, “as much as the population is growing at a very rapid rate that the government cannot cope with the task of providing infrastructure to meet the growing demand and other basic services like police stations and fire service stations among others are the most difficult aspect of it and there is no revenue or resources to provide them.”

However, observers are worried that with the many challenges the country is faced with presently, Nigeria may not be able to adequately plan for the future.

Continuing, Yari observed that, “It is no longer news that the slums have grown tremendously, there is no data to capture the number of children in school. Where are the schools located? How many people are travelling in the city and how is the transportation system? How many people walk on foot and how many people use motorcycles? What is the accident rate?”

Lending support to Yari’s position, Almustafa, stressed that “to track progress and development, the federal, states and local governments must not only accept data from surveys, but must also use the statistics to plan, monitor and evaluate the progress of development interventions.”

Describing data as a set of measurements including figures or quantities on defined variables generated by routine records, census, surveys, experiments or case studies,to indicate the status of progress he said “Data is the basis for assessing what is a nation’s problem to start with.

Besides, it is also based on data that a community, group, state or nation can make objective planning. The same data is what we need to also track progress over the period of intervention so that we are able to know whether we are making progress or otherwise”.

Stressing the importance of data, he noted that “data allows an objective assessment of status of variables under observation to be made and permits comparison to be made between similar variations in similar or different situations, revealing lessons to be learnt. It also affords reasonable predictions of specific situations to be made.”

Consequently, Almustafa, recommended that as long as Nigeria has the capability to collect data, what is needed, is the policy thrust that prioritises and supports it financially.