ABUJA, Nigeria — The House of Representatives has initiated a sweeping legislative overhaul of Nigeria’s data governance architecture, opening a public hearing on the Statistics Bill 2025 to replace an outdated legal framework and align national data with the demands of a modern digital economy.
The public engagement, convened on Monday, June 8, 2026, by the House Committee on National Planning and Economic Development at the National Assembly Complex, seeks to completely repeal the 19-year-old Statistics Act of 2007.
Okay News reports that the legislative push is being treated as a critical economic driver rather than a routine statutory amendment. In an address delivered on his behalf by House Majority Leader Julius Ihonvbere, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Tajudeen Abbas, stated unequivocally that Nigeria’s strategic ambition to build a $1 trillion economy would remain an unachievable dream without a credible, high-frequency statistical infrastructure to guide fiscal policymaking and attract foreign direct investment. “The Statistics Bill, 2025 is not a minor amendment; it is a complete structural overhaul,” Abbas asserted, warning that relying on obsolete 2007 guidelines in an era dominated by big data reduces governance to mere speculation.
The proposed legislation, which has already cleared its first and second readings, contains 42 clauses structured across eight distinct parts. According to the Chairman of the House Committee, Adegboyega Nasiru Isiaka, the statutory review became mandatory because the existing framework fails to accommodate modern data production streams, including artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, cloud computing, real-time tracking, and geospatial technologies. The new bill establishes sustainable funding mechanisms for the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), strengthens institutional data-confidentiality laws, and introduces strict inter-agency coordination mandates to eliminate wasteful, parallel data-collection efforts across various Ministries, Departments, and Agencies (MDAs).
Lending his voice to the reform, the Statistician-General of the Federation and Chief Executive Officer of the NBS, Prince Adeyemi Adeniran, lauded the National Assembly for creating an open platform for stakeholders, academia, development partners, and civil society organizations to refine the bill. Adeniran emphasized that empowering the National Statistical System (NSS) with an innovative, digitally native legal mandate will significantly upscale the capacity of statistical agencies to generate timely, granular, and undisputed data. The National Bureau of Statistics reaffirmed its commitment to collaborating with the legislature to guarantee that the final act reflects global standards of professional excellence, ultimately fostering evidence-based governance and sustainable national development planning.
