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National Bureau of Statistics Distances Itself from N5000 Note Survey

By on September 17, 2012

Statistician General, NBS, Dr. Yemi Kale

The management of the National Bureau of Statistics has said it never carried out a survey which showed 75% of Nigerians are against the N5000 note and currency restructuring exercise being spearheaded by the Central Bank of Nigeria.

According to a statement released by the NBS, it conducted an opinion poll on its website which indicated that 75% of Nigerians were not in favour of the CBN policy to introduce the new legal tender, however it said such an opinion poll should not be interpreted as a survey.

The statement said, “The Management of NBS wishes to inform the general public that the said results being published in the media is absolutely incorrect as the NBS has conducted no such survey, neither did it report a result from such an activity. An on-going opinion poll on NBS’ website is NOT equivalent to a survey and should therefore not be treated as such. Moreover opinion polls change as more votes come in and it is even more absurd to suggest that a result has been determined when the so called result could have changed 2 minutes later. Polls on NBS website are not based on any stated statistical methods, no sample size was selected and a single respondent is able to provide multiple answers to the same question thus making it impossible to make a valid inference from the poll results.  In addition, NBS does not rely on its use as an official statistical tool because it is not based on any of the existing systems upon which all NBS surveys are developed. Due to the nature of this particular poll, it is very clear that it is not, and cannot be, representative of the Nigerian population. A clearly stated disclaimer made this very clear on our website.

“As the coordinator of the National Statistical System and custodian of official statistics in Nigeria, NBS is mindful of its mandate of advocacy and public enlightenment on the use and importance of statistics in our national life. In pursuance of this mandate, the Bureau introduced interactive tools on its new website and data portal, one of which was the poll. The NBS puts up polling questions to elicit subjective responses from data users on data production, service level, or attitudes towards a particular current issue in the country. Essentially, it is a social interaction tool deployed to engage users of our statistical data. The poll  are neither representative nor based on any scientific/statistical methods and therefore cannot be considered to be official in anyway. No results are even considered let alone published or announced. Random questions are placed without any particular format and time limit and they are taken off and replaced randomly without any analysis. This again is clearly stated on our website. For these reasons, NBS strongly refutes any suggestion that it undertook a survey of public opinion the introduction of the N5, 000 note and announced any results for or against the policy.”