The National Bureau of Statistics on Wednesday released a report which showed that inflation had dropped from 11.28 per cent in September to 11.26 per cent in October.
However, the NBS has, again, failed to publish the statistics on unemployment, fuelling speculations that the agency has been asked to suppress negative statistics as the 2019 general elections approach.
The Statistician-General of the Federation, Dr. Yemi Kale, had said last week on Twitter that the NBS had not released official unemployment data for more than a year because of lack of money.
The last time statistics on the unemployment rate was published was for the third quarter of 2017.
He said work on Nigeria’s jobless figures, “can’t be completed due to budgetary releases”, adding that it had nothing to do with massaging the numbers or hiding bad news before elections in February.
Kale had said, “You guys need to stop this. I know it is election time but I’ve said this repeatedly. Nobody is calling me to manipulate any data or not to release any data.”
The last job statistics published by the NBS last year showed that the rate of unemployment had doubled since President Muhammadu Buhari took over in 2015.
Attempts to get a reaction from the Ministry of Finance on why the NBS was not given funds proved abortive as the Director of Finance, Hassan Dodo, refused to respond to telephone calls for over a week.
A text message sent to him was not responded to.
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