NBS to publish Nigeria’s corruption survey report in September

By Tola Akinmutimi

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), on Monday hinted that the report of its ongoing national survey on corruption, the second  National Household Survey on Quality and Integrity of Public Services in Nigeria, 2019, would be published in September.

A top official of the agency and a Project Director of the Survey, Mr. Isiaka Olarewaju, who disclosed this during a news conference in Abuja, said that field workers had been deployed already and that the exercise would be completed by the end of June.

Olarewaju, a Director in Charge of Real Sector and Household Statistics,, who represented the Statistician-General of the Federation and Chief Executive Officer of the official statistics producing and reporting agency, Dr. Yemi Kale, explained that the planning of the exercise commenced last year and would be completed by the end of this month.

He said:“This survey is a large one. We have since moved away from analogue to electronic, as we talk to you, we are monitoring those on field. We monitor the location of enumerators from the digital address of sample households.

“As soon as the data collection is finished, it will be available within one week, but we need to do data reliability test before releasing the result. On or before September, the result will be made public by the Statistician-General,” he added.

Olarewaju disclosed that 20 field officers had been deployed in each state of the federation including the FCT; comprising four teams in each state and a team comprised of one supervisor and four enumerators.

Making further clarification on the importance of the survey, the statistician said that it would allow government and citizens to examine the level of progress made within the last two years by the President Buhari-led administration in its anti-graft policy agenda.

According to him, the survey will be critical to the provision of key indicators for the monitoring and tracking of anti-corruption activities.

Olarewaju explained that the objective of the survey was to collect evidence-based information on forms of corruption affecting the Nigerian citizens on daily basis, determine corruption prevalence and prevailing typologies as well as provide a trend analysis of the indicators that could be used to inform relevant policies and track future progress.

In addition, he pointed out that the survey would ensure international comparability with surveys of similar nature carried out in other countries and also provide data for measuring some relevant Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) indicators.

The Project Director said further that the NBS had constituted a Technical and Steering Committees to support the coordination of the implementation of the survey and that the National Steering Committee was set up to take ownership of the result of the survey and to give directions on it.

The statistician said that members of the committee were drawn from top officials of the Anti-corruption agencies, law enforcement agencies, Code of Conduct Bureau and Departments and Civil Society groups (National Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative) and relevant ministries, among others.

The survey is being carried out by the bureau in collaboration with the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and funded by the UK’s Department For International Development (DFID).

 Commission will update the public on the outcome of the ongoing litigation”, the commission added.