Again, economists question integrity of National Bureau of Statistics’ inflation, job data

ECONOMISTS are once again raising questions over the integrity of data produced by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), particularly its inflation and job figures, stating that they lack some level of credibility.

The NBS is a body charged with the computation of national data on inflation, employment, crimes, among others, in Nigeria to aid government planning. Since 1947 when it began as the Federal Office of Statistics (FOS), allegations of political interference have dented the government institution, but analysts argue that things have never been as bad as they are today.

An economist and managing director of Financial Derivatives Company, Mr Bismark Rewane, picked holes in the latest consumer price index (CPI) released by the NBS on Monday, saying that it falls short of data integrity features.

The NBS recently rebased the CPI, from which it arrives at monthly inflation data. The rebasing exercise was done at a point Nigeria’s inflation stood at 34.8 percent. This was in December 2024. One month after the exercise, Nigeria’s inflation dropped to 24.5 percent in January 2025.

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Mr Rewane likened the CPI rebasing to the recently conducted United Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) scandal by Professor Ishaq Oloyede-led Joint Admissions and Matriculation Board (JAMB), noting that it was error-laden. The recently conducted UTME was full of technical errors, prompting Nigerians to demand the sacking of Prof Oloyede.

“Inflation was highest in three states: Benue State at 51 percent, Ekiti State at 34 percent, and Kebbi State at 33 percent. These are the food-producing states,” he said. “But they were lowest in consuming states. Ebonyi State had 7.19 percent; Adamawa State had 9.52 percent, and Ogun state had 9.91 percent.

“How come the states that are producing the food, and the food is stranded there at higher prices, while the states that are consuming the foodstuff are having low rates? What is happening here?”

“Are those numbers credible? And if they are not, then what are we seeing here? Are we seeing some distortion in the methodology? Are we seeing a JAMB-type situation here?” he asked.

He said it is “almost inconceivable that where you have the food, the prices are high, and where you are consuming the food, the prices are low. The difference between Benue State and Ogun State, for example, is almost 43 percent difference in inflation. What has happened?”

Mr Rewane said though food prices slowed recently, indications suggest that they may not be sustaunable. “We have seen some movement in some food prices, but are they sustainable? We’ve seen the price of rice and it’s gone all over the place,” he said.

“Rice prices dropped, one, because of imports. Two, because of the rumour that there’s poisoned rice, so people are not buying the rice. But we have not seen a massive shift to the substitutes for rice yet, so that is something that needs to be looked at.

“When you look at the food basket, you find that the price of tomatoes went up by 107 percent because of ‘Tomato Ebola,’ while the price of dairy actually stayed a little bit stable, so those are the things that we are looking at.

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“When you look at inflation, you have to begin to look at what causes inflation to decline. Is it a weak exchange rate that leads to inflation, or is it inflation that leads to a weak exchange rate?”

The NBS recently removed its own report entitled, ‘Crime Experience and Security Perception Survey 2024,’ from website days after hack and the reported invitation of its Chief Executive Officer, Mr Adeyemi Adeniran, by the State Security Service (SSS).

On December 19, BusinessDay reported that Mr Adeniran, who is the Statistician-General of the Federation, had been invited and interrogated by the SSS over the report.

However, a BusinessDay’s source said he was only interrogated. “The Statistician General wasn’t arrested. Although people in authority are not happy about the report, but claims that the SG was arrested are false. He was only invited for questioning and was allowed to go that same yesterday.”

On that same day, the NBS reported that its website has been hacked. But economists would have none of that.

Economists raise the alarm

Associate Professor of Economics, Dr Bona Nwanze, said politicisation of data is dangerous. “The politicisation of data is something we should never, ever do. Remember that recently, the NBS changed its unemployment methodology. Nobody knew why this was done. The job data eventually fell from over 30 percent to five percent or so after the computation. However, does any Nigerian believe that the unemployment rate is five percent? How does this even help the government to plan, or is it just meant to please politicians? This is how you destroy data integrity,” he said.

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A doctorate degree student of economics at Ahmadu Bello University, who wished to be addressed simply as Ms Aisha, said there is every indication that the government is beginning to interfere in the work and integrity of the NBS.

“They tried that under Buhari but it did not totally succeed. But it appears that this government is determined to change public perception about it by tampering with data,” she said.