Working with statistics: Kaduna State govt’s example

The greatest value of a picture is when it forces us to notice what we never expected to see—John Tukey.

GOVERNOR Uba  Sani’s first action on assumption of office was the signing of an Executive Order for the immediate financial inclusion of the over 2.1 million underserved and vulnerable citizens of Kaduna state who, hitherto, had been excluded from financial services. This action left no one in doubt about the governor’s determination to frontally and consequentially address the problem which had denied citizens access to social intervention programmes of the state and Federal Government and affected its efforts at poverty alleviation. The programme is one of the focal directions of his government’s broader economic empowerment agenda.  But without the survey by the Kaduna State Bureau of Statistics into the Kaduna State’s Financial Inclusion Programme, Governor Sani would never have been in an authoritative position to assess the success or otherwise of the programme and the bottlenecks if any that need to be addressed to ensure the attainment of the objective. This is the justification for statistics which, according to Stephen Senn, tells you  “what you have done wrongly or how you could have done it better”.

Read Also: 2023: I am ready for PDP presidential primaries — Peter Obi

This is exactly what the Kaduna State Bureau of Statistics has done for Governor Sani by undertaking surveys, not just into the Kaduna State Financial Inclusion programme, but into other critical areas like the Kaduna State Population Dynamics which will provide invaluable data on the state’s demographic patterns and serve as a solid foundation for effective resource allocation, and long-term planning, the Annual School Census of 2023/2024, which looked not only into the government efforts in improving the educational sector; but enrollment, school performance, infrastructural development, and other critical challenges that government needs facts to urgently address to ensure  quality learning. The survey into Citizen Perception of the Kaduna State Contributory Health Management Authority (KADCHMA) Health Contribution Scheme 2024, which is key to improving the state’s health contribution scheme, and ensuring better healthcare access for all, and the SDGs Watch 2023 which has tracked  the state’s progress towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and ensuring that the state efforts remained aligned to the global standards are all geared towards the same objectives.

The Kaduna State government has no rival in Nigeria in waging a sustained war on the dearth of figures for planning due to the numerous advantages it has gained. This explains its continued investment in establishing a vibrant State Statistical System. For example, Kaduna State using concrete evidence drew valid conclusions in drawing up its Development Plan which reflects its policy priorities, and the government aspirations to be the investment destination and food basket for Nigeria. In line with survey that about 80 to 85 percent of its 15 billion GDP is accounted for by agriculture, which also accounts for 42.7 percent of total employment of its people, the government has unequivocally anchored its development strategy on agriculture due to its capacity to provide employment for its teeming youth population, ensure food security and as a source of raw materials for agro-processing industries.

The point is that Kaduna State economic development strategy is based on reliable statistics. So what will the state gain from understanding its demographic structure? Apart from helping it in critical planning and governance, the report provides essential data on its growing population, migration patterns, and the characteristics of households. Armed with dependable data, the Governor Sani administration is better positioned to anticipate future needs in education, healthcare, housing, and infrastructure. In the preparation of the annual budgets, resources are allocated more effectively to ensure that no one is left behind and that incidences of abandoned projects are a thing of the past.

For the Uba Sani administration, education remains a top priority. The benefit of the Annual School Census for the state is that it will help the government to objectively monitor the state of the schools, including student enrolment, teacher availability, and infrastructure needs. With this data, the government is better positioned to tackle the challenges of access and quality, that would ensure that every child in Kaduna State receives the qualitative education that they deserve to become part of the knowledge based economy of the 21st century.  Several reports have shown that there is a strong correlation between the lack of data, abandoned projects and why budgets fail. The reports on abandoned projects have squarely showed that the lack of statistics for planning, not funding, is the main culprit. For instance, there is no denying the fact that infrastructure is crucial to Africa’s growth prospects, nor can one ignore or deny the ever growing need for the infrastructural improvement in Nigeria. But what we have constantly worked with are approximations, and not hard facts that are critical for planning. Despite the estimated shortfall of nearly $100 billion in infrastructure investment in Africa, lack of financing is certainly not the biggest problem.

It will make a great difference to hear other state governments speak authoritatively that only 30 per cent of the population has access to electricity and that only 10 percent has access to safe water and sanitation, like Kaduna State does, in the areas that it has embarked on survey. It is only then that budgets would achieve their objectives.  The Bureau is currently working on attracting more local and foreign investment to the agricultural sector with the survey on Re-Validation of Agricultural Investment Plan which would help government provide the much needed impetus in the area of infrastructure, land availability and financing for both small-holder and large scale farming in the state. To fill the gaping hole in the State’s data, the Bureau has concluded plans to conduct a range of innovative new surveys in critical sectors – health,labour,living standards.

Kaduna State deserves commendation for institutionalizing  the role of data in planning and monitoring of government policies because its objective is to improve the lives of the residents of the state,by providing comprehensive targets for all aspects of development and coordinating the efforts of all actors. If all goes well , Kaduna hopes to achieve its potentials by the 2030.  The modest gains Kaduna State has recorded in its desire to achieve inclusive economic growth and socio-economic transformation that translates into substantial improvements in the quality of lives of citizens, through higher productivity and competitiveness are attributable to planning and planning with hard facts.

• Ado writes in from Kaduna State