Statistics bureau warns Omokri not to play politics with data

The Statistician General of the National Bureau of Statistics, Yemi Kale, has warned the former Special Assistant to Goodluck Jonathan on New Media, Reno Omokri, to keep the NBS away from politics and fake news.

Mr Kale reacted to Mr Omokri’s tweet on ‘unemployment figures’ which he used to berate Muhammad Buhari administration.

Mr Omokri’s tweet read: “The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS ) just released another jobs report showing that in the last 21 months under reviewing, an additional 7.9 million Nigerians became unemployed under Buhari. This is the first government since 1999 that has never reported job gains, only job losses !”

However, Mr Kale quickly responded to the tweet and tagged it “fake news”. He explained that the figures quoted by Omokri were the figures for the third quarter of 2017

“This is fake news. NBS never released any such report. NBS last report was on unemployment for Q3 2017 with the update up to Q2 2018 in progress. Let’s kindly keep NBS away from politics or fake news. We do not support the politicisation of data, neither do we respect people that do so,” Mr Kale’s tweet read.

This is fake news. NBS never released any such report. NBS last report was on unemployment for q3 2017 with d update up to q2 2018 in progress. Let’s kindly keep NBS away from politics or fake news. We do not support politisation of data,neither do we respect people that do so.

— Dr Yemi Kale (@sgyemikale) July 30, 2018