NBS Refutes Report Of Statistician General’s Death

The National Bureau of Statistics  (NBS) has refuted reports in some online medium, that the Statistician General of the Federation, Dr Simon Harry, who was appointed in August last year is dead, whilst confirming that he is recuperating having fallen ill last week Saturday.

A statement signed by the Director, Communication and Public Relations Department of the bureau, Sunday Ichedi, stated that there was no truth in the report and as such should be deemed as fake news.

The statement issued yesterday read: “The attention of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) Board, management and staff has been drawn to the purported death of the Statistician of the Federation, Dr. Simon Harry, which was published by an online medium, on Sunday.

The bureau wishes to state that there is no iota of truth in what was published by the online medium and considers the publication as the height of irresponsible journalism and a figment of the imagination of the publisher. Journalism ethics require that any journalist should check the fact and be sure of the veracity of his information before publishing. The reverse was the case here.

“Now the fact of the matter is that the Statistician General was slightly indisposed on Saturday and following medication, is now recuperating.

certain that he would, in a matter of few days, be back to his desk  and  continue his work in repositioning the NBS as the foremost national statistics agency in Africa and among the best globally.

“We are all mortals and by nature sometimes get weary. That is the case of the Statistician General now and it is not unusual for anybody to get sometimes get weary in the course of daily endeavours.

“We are using this to advice the general public to completely discountenance the purported death of the Statistician General by a disreputable online medium, which has been noted for ‘irresponsible and fake news journalism’ since it deputed.

“While thanking those that have expressed concern about the health situation of the Statistician General in the past few hours following the ‘junk’ from the online medium, we are urging our other media to kindly disseminate the content of this press release as widely as possible in line with best industry practices.”