According to the World Bank, Nigeria’s statistical system requires an annual expenditure of $10 to $15 million in order to surpass that of South Africa, Brazil, Mexico, and Colombia.

This comes as the bank bemoaned the fact that South Africa and other ambitious counterparts have a better statistical system than Nigeria.

Johan Mistiaen, the World Bank Practice Manager for West and Central Africa, revealed this during a courtesy call with Senator Abubakar Atiku Bagudu, the Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, on Wednesday, according to a statement from the World Bank spokesperson, Mrs. Julie Osagie-Jacobs.

The proposal, according to Mistiaen, who was joined by World Bank Country Director Ndiame Diop, was called “Next-Level Statistics to Support Nigeria’s Reform and Growth Agenda.”

“Previously, Mr. Johan Mistiaen noted that the nation’s statistical performance was below that of its aspirational peers, including Mexico, Colombia, South Africa, and Brazil,” the statement said. He proposed that the nation’s statistical system may be improved to match that of its aspirational peers by investing roughly $10–15 million a year.

Bagudu responded by promising that the Nigerian government would continue to support the National Bureau of Statistics’ (NBS) mission of generating socioeconomic data and reaffirming the agency’s independence.

Following a rebase of the consumer price index, Nigeria’s inflation rate dropped to 23.18 percent in February 2025, according to statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics.

The nation’s Gross Domestic Product report, another important piece of information made public by NBS, showed that the GDP was 3.84 percent in the last quarter of 2024.