Nigeria’s Statistician General Dies Eight Months After Appointment

Simon Harry

 

Simon Harry, Nigeria’s Statistician General of the Federation has died.

Rumors of his death shook Abuja Wednesday morning, though details were still sketchy as at press time.

When contacted, NBS spokesperson Ichedi Joel confirmed the news.

“Yes,” he answered when asked if Simon was really dead.

“As at the time I left office last night, he was still alive, but let me get to the office first,” he told BusinessDay.

Last weekend, NBS authorities debunked Harry’s rumored death.

In a a statement, Ichedi had noted that the online publication which reported his death was wrong and that the Statistician General was slightly indisposed on Saturday and following medication, but was recuperating.

It was learnt that he died in an Abuja hospital, not mentioned and has been on life support,” an NBS staff who will not like to be mentioned said.

‘It’s a huge loss for us, because of the restructuring he has carried out in the short time of assumption of office,” he noted.

On August 26, 2021, President Muhammadu Buhari appointed Simon B. Harry as the new Statistician-General of the Federation to head the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

Harry succeeded Yemi Kale, whose second term tenure of five years expired on August 16, 2021.

Until his appointment Harry was the Director, Corporate Planning and Technical Coordination Department of NBS with almost three decades of statistical experience.

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.

In the course of his civil service career, Harry has contributed to several reform initiatives including the reform of the then Federal Office of Statistics which transformed to the current National Bureau of Statistics, the reform of the Nigerian Statistical System which resulted to the creation and establishment of State Bureaus of Statistics at the sub-national level.

During his very short stay in office, Harry built on the successes of his predecessor, Yemi Kale and carried out some remarkable transformatio