Some panelists at the on-going three-day International Statistical Conference in Lagos have called on the Federal Government to invest and fund research to enhance inclusive development in the country.

The panelists made the call at plenary session on the topic “Guide to Statistical Research Design, Proposal Development and Project Execution.’’

The panelists observed that the level of poor funding for research in the universities had made it difficult for professors to support their students.

Prof. Peter Osanaiye of Department of Statistics, University of Ilorin, said that the Federal Government should be able to fund knowledge-based projects.

Osainaye said that professors usually have so many students under them for supervision that they were supposed to be supporting with research grants.

He said government should increase funding for research in university so that they (professors) would be able to support their students with research grants.

The professor, however, called for sponsorship from corporate organisations to help professors so that they could assist their research students.

Similarly, Prof. Joy Nwabueze of Department of Statistics, Micheal Opara University Umudike, Abia, called on the Federal Government to allocate special funding for professors.

Nwabueze said that research students enjoyed grants from professors because their governments had made provision for such funds.

She said they might not be able to support good proposals because of lack of funding.

On his part, Prof. Timothy Bamiduro of Department of Statistics, University of Ibadan, urged the Federal Government to fund research carried out by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS)

He said the bureau could not effectively carry out important surveys because of funding as they used to do some years back.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that no fewer than 140 scientific papers were presented at the conference.

One of the papers focused on “Contraceptive usage among ever married women in urban and rural Nigeria’’, jointly presented by Mangbon Torden and Turman Henry, both researchers from NBS.

The scope of the paper was on the level of contraceptive usage in the rural and urban areas.

The researchers used five variables in carrying out the research – level of education, wealth index, mass media, husband consent and religion.

One of the key findings of the research was that the level of education of the women had influenced their usage of contraceptives, both those living in rural and urban areas.

NAN reports that the conference is being organised in collaboration with the Lagos State Bureau of Statistics and the state Ministry of Economic Planning and Budget.

It created forum for exchange of best practices among participating national and international statistical offices.

Representatives of Ethiopian Statistical Association, Botswana Statistical Association and some others in Africa attended the conference (NAN)

In the meantime, the President of the Association of Bureau de Change Operators of Nigeria (ABCON), Alhaji Aminu Gwadabe,  on Friday predicted an end to unstable foreign exchange  rate, following Nigeria’s exit from recession.

Gwadabe told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Lagos that available economic indices and the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) forex policy were indications for a stable naira.

“Naira will definitely remain stable as all the indices will give the CBN the capacity to maintain stability.

“A rising foreign reserves of 31.22 billion dollars, the CBN is well positioned to sustain its interventions at the foreign exchange market.

“The foreign reserve is robust. There is enhanced fiscal discipline and increasing confidence of foreign investors in the economy and many empowerment programmes organised by the Federal Government,’’ Gwadabe said.

The financial expert noted that the expansion in the manufacturing sector as shown by data from the Purchasing Managers Index was also an indication of a growing economy.

NAN reports that the naira had remained stable since the Sallah break, exchanging at N365 to the dollar at the parallel market.

The Nigerian economy exited recession after attaining 0.55 per cent growth in the second quarter.

Meanwhile, the CBN has injected over 3.6 billion dollars in series of interventions to the forex market in the past five months. (NAN)