President Muhammadu Buhari has described as wild estimates some of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) statistics on Nigeria saying they bear little relation to the realities on ground.
Buhari, in a series of tweets after the inauguration of the Presidential Economic Advisory Council (PEAC), insisted that Nigeria can only move forward with homegrown solutions.
“We must domesticate our policies to reflect our local realities. While we very much welcome the cooperation and support we are getting from our friends abroad, it is important to make it clear that Nigeria can only truly move forward with homegrown solutions.
“This must extend to data collection as well. Today, most of the statistics quoted about Nigeria are developed abroad by the World Bank, IMF and other foreign bodies. Some of these statistics are wild estimates that bear little relation to the facts on the ground.
“We can only plan realistically when we have reliable data. As a government we are taking very serious steps to improve the quality of data available for policymaking, and today I charged the Presidential Economic Advisory Council to prioritize the collection of Primary data. The President tweeted.
Recently, the IMF rated Nigeria as the second worst country in the use of Sovereign Wealth Funds by the Federal Government faulted the report saying IMF quoted third-party data and not the output of the Fund’s research.
