NO RIFT BETWEEN NGIGE AND NATIONAL BUREAU OF STATISTICS

Oru Leonard

The Federal Ministry of Labour and Employment has explained that there is no conflict between the Minister of Labour and Employment, Senator Chris Ngige and the National Bureau of Statistics in relation to the National Unemployment Data.

“The Hon. Minister had in clarification to a question during a private visit to his office by the Chartered Institute of Personnel Management of Nigeria (CIPMN), brought to the fore, an underplayed difference between the method engaged by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) for unemployment data collection as well as assessment, and that used by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS)

“He further informed his visitors of a meeting with the World Bank aimed at verifying these areas of differences, harmonizing them so as to ensure that figures brought out by any of the parties, the ILO or the NBS would be an unemployment figure that trulyreflects the peculiarities of the Nigerian nation.

“The reason is that going by the ILO standard for unemployment statistical evaluation, there are some parameters which it considers obsolete, hence excluded, but still obtain in Nigeria. This is the essence of the meeting which held yesterday.

“The Minister therefore did not refute or has issues with the statistics released by the NBS beyond bringing into reckoning, the ILO parameter which situates national peculiarities. And this does not in anyway nullify the existing cordiality and cooperation between the office of the Minister of Labour and Employment and the NBS as part of the same government.