Chairman of the census standing committee of the National Population Commission (NPC), Dr. Ipalibo Harry, has assured of a credible upcoming national housing census exercise, assuring that the process and activities will be fully digitised.
Dr. Harry gave the assurance while fielding questions from Journalists during the training organised for all state commissioners at its headquarters in Abuja, as part of the commission’s preparedness towards a successful hosting of the 2022 census.
He said the upcoming census “will be the best Nigeria would have in history”.
He allayed fears of some citizens who expressed concerns that the issue of insecurity and Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) may be an obstacle to conducting a complete exercise, assuring that the digital process has tackled that challenge.
“All citizens will be counted in their current locations but their details would automatically be moved to their right states and local governments when they are registered into the database.
“Thanks for preparedness of the commission and Mr. President’s full support. We are going into full digital facilities in creating our database and they are not controvertible at all, we have finished creating our Personal Digital Assistant (PDA’s) required in all the states except for a few areas due to insecurity but that is being resolved now.
“Insecurity is a challenge but technology has given us the solution to this challenge. Those who are in IDP camps are from somewhere, they would be counted because all their data requirements would be captured . When you count the IDP’s and input their data the system will automatically lift them from where they are to the state they come from and to their community and by that process you have a fair and accurate census,” he said.
“The issue of insecurity would not be that much of a challenge, and this will also cover the gender aspect because there would be data on women.
“We would also conduct the exercise in boundary communities but their values would be available and kept until the boundary commission or court determines which state they belong to and the figures goes into that state. However Nigerian citizens in diaspora will not be counted because the exercise only covers those physically present to be counted,” he added.
Earlier, the specialist consultant, Chief Dr. Nkem Okiro, said the training was organised to prepare all the state commissioners for the housing population census, in order to have a credible exercise acceptable to all.
“We want the census exercise to have integrity because in the past communities and ethnicity have gone to court to challenge the results so we want this to be credible that is why every commissioner and citizens must agree on the results before it is published.
“We want to use this census to eliminate corruption, falsification of figures, bad staff syndrome and prepare Nigeria to be seen as the largest black ethnicity populated country in order to clear the doubts of many people in the world who do not see Nigeria as populated as it claim.
“Many citizens are sad to see a small state like Kano having 44 local governments when you go to do a census in such state this census will determine the smallest states like Bayelsa and Gombe if they have more populated citizen than Kano this census body will tell the truth because we are conducting an exercise with integrity,” he said.
The federal commissioner representing Taraba state Sanni Sule Saleh, noted that the state had internal security challenges which had been addressed during the EAD’s, saying “if we were able to cover EAD’s in all the local governments we would be able to conduct census”.
Meanwhile, the federal commissioner representing Oyo state, and chairman, Public Affairs Commission at the NPC, Dr. Oyetayo Oyetunji, noted that there were misconceptions and the doubts that census can be held now.
He stated that public enlightenment on why the census exercise should be held now was critical and ongoing.
