VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3
Executive Summary
Nigeria’s capacity for evidence-based governance is fundamentally constrained by a fragmented and inefficient national data architecture.
The critical functions of demographic analysis, socio-economic statistics, and civil registration are currently dispersed across multiple agencies, leading to inconsistent data, duplicated resources, and administrative bottlenecks.
This fragmentation directly undermines national planning, especially as Nigeria seeks to harness its demographic dividend for sustainable development.
This policy brief proposes a comprehensive, two-part institutional reform to resolve this systemic weakness:
-The Merger of Core Statistical Functions: A strategic merger of the National Population Commission (NPC) and the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) into a new, unified National Bureau of Statistics and Demography (NBSD). This will create a single, authoritative source for all official statistics, ending data conflicts and enabling integrated analysis of population trends and economic outcomes.
-The Transfer of Civil Registration: The relocation of the operational birth and death registration function from the NPC to the National Population Registry under the Ministry of Interior.
This move logically places the administrative task of vital registration alongside national identity management, simplifying citizen services and creating a definitive legal population register.
Together, these reforms establish a clear, efficient separation of duties: a Ministry of Interior focused on administrative registration and legal identity, and a powerful NBSD dedicated to world-class data production, analysis, and dissemination.
An accelerated 90-day implementation roadmap, initiated by a Presidential Executive Order, is proposed to launch this transformative restructuring. This reform is not merely an administrative adjustment but a strategic imperative to provide the reliable, coherent data necessary to guide Nigeria’s future development, security, and prosperity
