Statistician General’s Reported Death, A Hoax, Sick But Recuperating, NBS

The National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) has faulted the reports of purported death of the Statistician General of the Federation, Dr. Simon Harry, saying that though he was indisposed but is recuperating.

In a statement by the NBS Director, Communication and Public Relations Department, Sunday Ichedi, the Bureau maintained that “there is no iota of truth in what was published by the online medium (Not Optimum Times) and considers the publication as the height of irresponsible journalism and a figment of the imagination of the publisher.”

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

“We are well 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 (sic) 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.”