The Federal Government has commenced the processes of conducting the National Integrated Household Survey (NIHS), the first of its kind in the country, as part of its practical measures to assess the level of success recorded by its funding and other interventions during the COVID-19 pandemic nationwide.
The survey, which will be jointly conducted by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) and the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), will involve over 400 enumerators and other field officers and cover 33,300 households across the country.
The Statistician General of the Federation and the Chief Executive Officer of NBS, Prince Semiu Adeyemi Adeniran, during a media briefing on the arrangements on the survey, said that on completion of the exercise, the results will serve as a veritable source of data for tracking the success or otherwise of several policies and interventions put in place in recent years by government in response to the macro and socioeconomic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
He recounted that when the pandemic broke out in the country, the Federal Government, through various agencies, particularly the CBN, put in place several programmes and measures to cushion the COVID-19 effect on individuals, households, and businesses.
The Statistician General explained that the results from the survey would serve as a major source of information for monitoring the impact of some of the programmes and measures, particularly on households in the country, stressing that the significance and value of the survey cannot be over-emphasized.
Adeniran explained that the NIHS would now be conducted quarterly with a view to using to using its findings on households for planning, policy formulation and implementation in the years ahead.
He said: This survey is expected to be conducted on a quarterly basis, with the primary objective of generating reliable estimates on household income and expenditures, as well as insights into their economic behavior and financial situation.
“Specifically, the scope of the survey covers the educational background and status of the households, their consumption and expenditure profiles, household assets and properties, access to financial services and credit constraints, incomes and savings, as well as information on household enterprises amongst others”, he added.
While soliciting members of the public cooperation with the enumerators and other field officers that will be involved in the exercise, Adeniran promised that their identities and information given during the exercise would be handled with confidentiality.
Speaking on the exercise and its importance to the nation’s development, the CBN Governor’s representative, who is also the Deputy Director, Monetary and Financial Statistics of the apex bank, Mallam Bello Yakubu, said that the survey would provide one of the credible information that will aid policy articulation for the nation’s economy.
Yakubu explained: “The household integrated survey is a survey that will generate information on households, pattern of consumption, income generation and even their residency. This will help us articulate policies that will be able to give a sound direction in terms of the impact on the economy.
“The enumerators will go to 33,000 households across the nation. I want to appeal to these households that will be visited by the field officers to give a maximum co-operation. Those information that would be solicited would be aggregated. Your identity will not be revealed and your information will be treated with utmost confidentiality”, the Director added.
