NBS gets new boss as Simon Harry replaces Yemi Kale as Statistician-General

President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the appointment of Simon Harry as the new Statistician-General of the Federation and Chief Execuitive Officer of the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

The appointment was announced in a statement on Thursday, August 26, 2021, by Yunusa Tanko Abdullahi, Special Adviser, Media and Communication, to the Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Zainab Ahmed.

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

The statement reads, “Currently, Dr Harry is 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, Dr 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.”

Kale was first appointed in August 2011 for an initial five-year term. He was reappointed by President Buhari in 2016 after the end of his tenure.

Before assuming office in 2011, he was the Special Adviser to the then Minister of National Planning.