The Senator representing Ondo South Senatorial District and Chairman/ Chief Executive Officer of Global Fleet Group, Bar.

Jimoh Ibrahim, has tasked Africa economies, the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF) with positive impact of data on Africa’s development agenda.

Speaking on the sidelines of the ongoing IMF/ World Bank Spring Meetings in Washington DC, he said data was a critical element in economic and political development.

He explained that data served as the foundation on which new African economic development would be established. According to him, “without data, no one can effectively reduce crime or operate a government aimed at achieving poverty reduction.

Population data and individual details suggest that citizens should have an identity passport to capture pertinent information about who they are and what they do.”

Currency data, he said, indicated that central banks in Africa must understand how much currency exists within and outside the banking sector for effective planning.

“Electoral data is necessary to comprehend the level of public participation and why others are not involved in the political process.

Every sector of the economy requires data, and if action is not taken now, in five years, it will be impossible to run any government without data, Ibrahim posited,” he stated. Ibrahim said that no one could help Africa without data. He disclosed that based on the current economic outlook, “we cannot guess or assume that it is in a critical situation.

“We cannot grow in Africa without data. We should invest 15 per cent of our budget in technology-powered data for the next ten years.

Our development is impossible without data.”

Warning the IMF to stop making projections without empirical data, he said the Nigerian government would soon take the lead when the current Data Bank Bill is passed into law, stressing that everyone would be a stakeholder in the new data bank.