You might think the job of a statistician is one of the dullest in the world, up there with accounting and chicken sexing. But not in Africa. Yemi Kale is statistician general of the National Bureau of Statistics of Nigeria. His task is exhilarating. It is also exhausting.
Mr Kale is not infrequently subjected to threats, particularly when he finds that poverty levels in a certain state are higher than thought. Once, he says, he sent five of his 3,000 workers to collect data from a remote part of Ekiti, in the west of the country. Villagers surrounded the intruders and marched them to the chief, who threatened to kill them. Only intervention from Mr Kale’s headquarters calmed things down.
Mr Kale must be creative. When people are asked how much they earn, suspicion of authority makes them underestimate. Ask them how much they spend, however, and, chest puffed up, they will give a much higher number. In surveys, getting the question right matters.