By Dele Sobowale

“The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything.” Edward Phelps. (VANGUARD BOOK OF QUOTATIONS P 161).

The media, including me, made a terrible mistake a few weeks ago. It all started from a story in the PUNCH newspaper of April 5, 2013, by one Friday Olokor, titled “Only 27.2% of Nigerians’ll be poor by 2015 –NBS.” The title was totally misleading and other commentators, apart from me, reacted to what, we knew, was a fallacious statement. As it turned out, the Chief Executive of the National Bureau of Statistics, Dr. Yemi Kale, had already sent a correction to media houses in Abuja. Our copy at Vanguard had not reached Lagos by the time I wrote. That was the source of the error on my part.

Dr. Yemi Kale

Later, I received a call from Dr Kale, a civil call from a public servant. Unlike others who would send angry and abusive rejoinders Dr Kale, explained that the title of the report in the PUNCH was misleading. The NBS did not declare that “by 2015, only 27.2% of the nation’s population would be poor” – as Mr Friday Olokor wrote.

What the NBS said was clear from my conversation with Kale. Nigeria as a signatory to the global Millennium Development Goals, MDGs, had committed itself to reduce the percentage of people living below the poverty line by 50% by 2015 – which is a mere two years away.

Currently, the NBS operates with metrics, developed in 2004, when Professor Ojowu was the Chief Economic Adviser to President Obasanjo. According to the NBS, only 54.4 per cent of Nigerians live in poverty. So, half of that is 27.2%. I will presently address the 54.4 per cent base figure. But, let me finish with my apologies to the NBS and Dr Kale.

That Friday Olokor’s title was misleading can be found in paragraph seven of that report and I quote fully. “Based on the last research conducted in 2010, the NBS noted that the country would need to build about 37.2 per cent of its population to live above the present national poverty line”. Most of us and Olokor misinterpreted that paragraph and it has now been clarified. From the 2010 research, it would appear that the percentage of people living in poverty had risen over 64 per cent.

While apologising to Dr Kale, it would appear that the paragraph was not explicit enough about what is the current position on poverty. In short, how many Nigerians are now classified as living in poverty?

Now let us return to the 54.4 per cent base – which became the official position of the Federal Government in 2004. While Dr Kale was not the CEO of the NBS at the time, I was here on these pages and I know the origin of the 54.4 per cent which is accepted only by the Federal Government of Nigeria.

As Dr Kale would recall, the NEEDS I document had declared in several pages that 70 per cent of Nigerians were poor – when the then Chief Economic Adviser, CEA, Professor Charles Soludo, was in charge. Soludo departed for the Central Bank and Professor Ojowu stepped in as CEA.

Ojowu while delivering his first report to the President and the Federal Executive Council, FEC, had repeated that 70 per cent of Nigerians lived in poverty when he was stopped by President Obasanjo, who declared that he did not believe 70 per cent of Nigerians lived in poverty.

He ordered Ojowu to “go and do a better job”. The result was the paper-reduction of poverty from 70 per cent to 54.4 per cent. That shameless revision of economic facts led to a verbal warfare between Professor Ojowu and me on the pages of this paper.

It is clear who won that contest because the world still believes that 70 per cent of Nigerians live under poverty. I recollect telling Professor Ojowu at the time that “You can’t bully reality.” Neither Obasanjo nor any Head of State can unilaterally alter globally accepted data.

The point is clear. Even the 54.4 per cent was not scientifically derived, it was a case of “wuru-wuru to the answer” which made Obasanjo happy – because to Baba Iyabo “ignorance is bliss” when it allows government to evade the truth.

I hope Dr Kale accepts the apology; I also hope he understands that we are forever dealing with governments that prefer not to be truthful to the people and with officials ever ready to ‘co-operate’ with them. No personal harm was intended.