I’ve Insisted On Authentic Data Since Becoming NBS CEO In 2011

Irked by suggestions especially in the social media casting aspersions on the GDP data released by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) on Tuesday morning, Dr. Yemi Kale, its chief executive, on Thursday continued defence of the numbers churned out by the agency showing that Nigeria came out of recession in the second quarter of 2017.
In a series of tweets, Kale, who is also statistician General, defended the figures insisting that they are products of empirical data indicating that the country is on the path of slow and even gradual recovery that would be sustained and improve over time, provided the government the needful without which the nation would “once again sink into negative growth as quickly as we got out.”
What Nigeria faced, he explained, was stagflation, defined as when an economy is growing negatively (recession), in the presence of rising inflation and unemployment, which means recession normally comes with low inflation.
“In many cases, a recession will exhibit lower inflation because a recession suggests producers are producing less usually, because there is no demand for their goods and when there is no demand then supply will outstrip supply and prices will decline. In fact the CBN (Central Bank of Nigeria) will raise interest rates in an inflationary environment to prevent demand pull inflation which is overspending by the masses and remove money in circulation.
“So, sometimes, inflation is caused by the masses having money in their pocket so monetary policy may be used in this regard to curtail demand and spending. Again, this suggests that they may be linked but are not dependent on each other when they are independently computed.
“Inflation we face today is however not demand pull but cost push and structurally linked largely to forex issues and infrastructural issues we have had for years (which accounts for the fact that) prices (of goods) are high in the market.”
For those wondering how any one can truly say Nigeria is to be truly out of recession in the face of all of these factors when the impact of the positive GDP is not being felt, or the economy said to be recovering, Kale explained that economic recovery is gradual, just as getting into recession is (negative GDP) is a process began from decline in GDP from 6% to 5%, 3% to -0.6% to -1.4% to -2.3%.
Meanwhile, he wondered why no one raised eye-brow when the same agency reported that Nigeria slipped into recession are now blowing hot, while insisting that the GDP is not reflecting the real situation of Nigeria’s economy.
“I was statistician general and CEO of NBS since 2011 and no data since then has ever been “false or bogus” as being claimed he stressed.
Critics of the NBS data showing that the country is out of recession have continued lament the rate of poverty in the land, as well as hunger and unemployment as proof that Nigeria is still in recession, to which he replied: “If you claim recession is only over when everybody has jobs and food, then Nigeria has been in recession since colonial times. It also means every country in the world is in recession because there is no country in the world that doesn’t have poor and unemployed people.”
There are 46 economic activities considered while computing GDP and 21 recorded negative growth as in the case of the Q2 GDP data, he said, which suggests “that all is not well yet, but it is an important first step to arrest the slump.”
Moreso, Kale continued, the services sector which ordinarily “impacts the man on the street more was still negative though agric and industry took us out of recession so it is expected that for now and as recovery continues depending on doing the right things and I can’t stress that enough then services will also come out of recession and people will feel the impact more over time.
“There is no magic wand or auto button. It’s a process,” he further noted.