By Philip Shimnom Clement
The Statistician General of the Federation, Mr Simon Harry, is not dead, Daily Trust can report.
A news website, had reported that Mr. Harry died after a brief illness.
“Statistician-General of the Federation, Dr. Simon Harry is dead. A source close to the family told this medium that he died on Saturday in the evening after a brief illness,” the news website had said.
However in a chat with Daily Trust, the Director, Communications and Public Relations at the National Bureau of Statistics, Mr. Sunday Ichedi, dispelled the news.
He said “The Bureau wishes to state that there is no iota of truth in what was published by the online medium and considers the publication as the height of irresponsible journalism and a figment of the imagination of the publisher. Journalism ethics require that any journalist should check the fact and be sure of the veracity of his information before publishing. The reverse was the case here.
“Now the fact of the matter is that the Statistician General was slightly indisposed on Saturday and following medication, is now recuperating. We are well certain that he would, in a matter of few days, be back to his desk and continue his work in repositioning the NBS as the foremost national statistics agency in Africa and among the best globally. We are all mortals and by nature sometimes get weary. That is the case of the Statistician General now and it is not unusual for anybody to get sometimes get weary in the course of daily endeavours.”
The NBS spokesman advised the general public to disregard the purported death of the Statistician General.
