The Statistician-General of the Federation, National Bureau of Statistics, Dr Yemi Kale, has urged  relevant  stakeholders to suggest viable means of delivering  credible statistics in Nigeria and  indeed Africa.
Kale made the call  at a two-day international on Data Acquisition, Preservation and Warehousing for Education, Marketing and Development, organised by Data-Africa, in Abuja last Monday .
“All the recommendations that would emerge from this workshop will help in refocusing the production of official statistics for better public service delivery in Nigeria.
“I believe if we do the right thing at the right time and for the right reasons, Nigeria and indeed Africa can be great’’, Kale said.
The theme of the event is:” Data Warehousing and Dissemination for Security and National Development: Creating Synergy among the Data-value Chain”.
Kale said  data was playing a major role in shaping and providing useful scientific information that impact on almost every aspect of human endeavour.
“We are living in a global information society where the flow of information is constantly increasing and evolving.
“Data is playing a major role in shaping and providing useful scientific information that impact on almost every aspect of human endeavour.
“The significance of statistical information for making evidenced-based decisions that guide the implementation policy, monitoring of existing policy and evaluation of the effectiveness of policy decisions cannot be over-emphasised,’’ he said.
Kale explained that statistics provide users with clear objective, numerical data on all aspects of lives and state of the country as regards  growth and characteristics of  the existing population.
Also speaking, Team Leader of Data-Africa, Prof Edwin Idu, underscored the need to drive socio-economic development in Africa on the basis of credible data and  provision of evidence-based information.
“He said, Data is a key development resource for planning, coordination and making informed decision. Yet the discussion on data value chain in Africa has been sparse.
“We are here with the practitioners,and researchers to address the new challenges in the data industry and provide more pro-active measures for the usage of data for security and national development.
“We work with relevant stakeholders in the industry especially, National Bureau of Statistics, researchers, policy makers and the private sectors to create the needed synergy to support the development of the industry.
Idu added  “we hope to create a new narrative that will really address challenges and salient  issues and find possible way of using data for planning and financial development.
“We also aim to link stakeholders across the data value chain to share information and create synergies to support the data sector.
“To increase income and economic growth of the data value chain and prioritizing and stimulating interventions to increase competitiveness.
He said the conference would help in creating new narrative with respect to data warehousing and dissemination for security and national development.
In his remarks, Director-General, Raw Material and Research Development Council, Dr Hussaini Ibrahim, emphasised the need for provision of evidence-based information to drive socio-economic development on  the African continent.
“This requires the zeal for provision of official statistics as a veritable and indispensable tool needed for driving the quest for economic growth and sustainability of the African nations.
“We need to focus on how to optimise sustainable growth in the data industry in Africa and provided practical steps towards value chain approaches to increase the market for processed data,”he said.