The President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), has approved the appointment of Simon Harry as the Statistician-General of the Federation to head the National Bureau of Statistics

This is according to a statement issued on Thursday by the Special Adviser, Media and Communications to the Minister of Finance, Budget and Planning, Yunusa Abdullahi.

The statement noted that Harry is to succeed Kale, whose second term of five years expired on August 16.

It was titled, “President Buhari approves appointment of Dr. Simon Harry as Statistician-General of the Federation.”

It read in part, “President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the appointment of Dr. Simon B. Harry as the new Statistician-General of the Federation to head the National Bureau of Statistics.

“Dr. Harry is to succeeded the outgoing Statistician-General, Dr. Yemi Kale, whose second term tenure of five years expires on 16th August, 2021”

It noted that currently, Harry is the Director, Corporate Planning and Technical Coordination Department of NBS with almost three decades of statistical experience.

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He joined the erstwhile Federal Office of Statistics as Statistician 11 in 1992 and rose to the position of a substantive Director of Statistics in 2019.

According to the statement, Harry has contributed to several reform initiatives including the reform of the then Federal Office of Statistics which transformed to the current NBS.

He was also involved in the reform of the Nigerian Statistical System which resulted to the creation and establishment of State Bureaus of Statistics at the sub-national level.

Recall that Kale assumed office in 2011, and was reappointed in 2016 making him the first chief executive in the agency’s history to serve two terms as statistician general.