Amidst scarce resources, advocacy has intensified on need to digitise the 2023 Census. Does the federal government have the capacity or better still, is the country ready to go digital given peculiar challenges including power supply? KEHINDE OSASONA asks.
If Nigeria succeeds in conducting a census exercise in 2023, it would be coming 17 years after the last one.
Records show that in 108 years since the amalgamation, there have been only six headcounts in Nigeria, three under colonial rule and three others afterwards.
The 1991 Census was conducted 27 years after that of 1963. The 2006 count was 15 years after 1991. What it implies is that it is already 16 years since the 2006 headcount was conducted.
While the 2006 exercise put the population of the country at 140.43 million, 71.3 million male and 69.0 million female.
The debate in favour of another census has continued to resonate with concerned citizens and stakeholders advocating a digitised exercise.
Like the general elections, there have been arguments by stakeholders and experts on the need to employ technology for the next census exercise as a way of ridding it of irregularities and complain that usually trail every exercise.
Although, the federal government’s readiness for the exercise has not firmly rooted, there have been awareness and sensitisation by the National Population Commission (NPC) in readiness for the much-touted exercise.
The federal government, however, said recently that it may carry out a national census after the 2023 general elections, it was still not clear whether N178.09 billion earmarked for the national population and housing census in the 2022 budget would aid in digitising the exercise as being advocated by NPC and other stakeholders.
Nigeria’s Constitution authorises only the federal government to undertake a census. Also, Section 6 of the NPC Act empowers the commission to undertake the enumeration of the population of Nigeria periodically through censuses, sample surveys or otherwise and to establish and maintain a machinery for continuous and universal registration of births and deaths, across the federation.
How feasible?
Following agitations the NPC, sometime last year, disclosed its readiness to employ the service of one million Nigerians for the census.
The Director-General, NPC, Nasir Isa-Kwarra, who stated this after meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari in Abuja, further stated that the commission would deploy high technology in the conduct of the national census.
“It is very crucial because I have highlighted that the census is a very important exercise for the nation. Through census, we generate the data that we use for policy making, for planning, for development, by the three tiers of government, and the private sector, they all need this.
“If you are a private sector, you’re producing something; certainly, you need to know the population of an area if you want to create a market there.
“So, census data is very crucial, very important. Because, the data we’ve been using are just projections and estimation and are sort of obsolete, we need the actual census data to use for our planning,” he stated.
However, while shedding more light on the need to adopt advanced technology and its effectiveness earlier this year, the NPC said it has advanced reliable technological innovations to prevent politicians and interested elites from manipulating the 2023 census.
The Commission added that the exercise will be the first-ever digitally compliant population and housing census in Nigeria.
Commissioner, NPC, Deji Ajayi, at a press conference stated further: “The commission has intensified preparatory activities deploying technological innovations on a massive scale to conduct a truly scientific census that will not only be accurate and reliable but also transparent and acceptable to all Nigerians.
“It will be an entirely paperless exercise. No document will be brought to interview people as it will be digital. We will ensure that we have a seamless census.
“A total of one million Nigerians would be recruited by the federal government for the conduct of the 2023 national census,” he added.
Confirming further, NPC federal Commissioner for Nasarawa state, Mr Silas Agara, also assured that the country would not fail in the introduction of digital or paperless census for the first time in 2023.
Agara, who spoke with journalists in Karu LGA while inspecting training venues for ad hoc staff of the commission, said the commission intended to get it right with the paperless census.
“We have programmed ourselves to go out on trial census to look at the challenges that will crop up in the course of the trial census and those challenges will be addressed in the main census head count that will come up in 2023.
“The ongoing training of the staff in selected local government areas in the six geo-political zones of the country was aimed at adequately preparing them with knowledge and know how on how a population census will be conducted, especially a paperless one.
“That is why we are conducting this training for about 5,199 ad hoc staff, to impact on them knowledge that will be useful in making this first digital or paperless census a success.
“We are carrying out this training in one local government area in every geo political zone in the country. So in North Central, we picked Karu Local Government area to carry out the training.
“The size of Karu and the population density and some other attributes have contributed in informing the choice of Karu as the preferred local government in the North Central geopolitical zone,” he said.
“I am quite sure we will get it right because of the trainings we have carried out. Our staffs have gone through lots of training within and out of the country. We have been able to engage ad hoc staff at different levels and we have equipped them.
“Now we are training them again. We have the equipment on ground including Personal Digital Assistant systems for them to use during the field work.
“I have seen the trainees in class and met some of them on the field and I can tell you that we have competent hands that can address any issue that may arise during the exercise,” he added.
Agara said the training, which began on June 26, would last for 12 days with 5,199 staff and their facilitators in attendance at various centres in Karu, Karshi, Uke and Panda communities, all in the local government area.
He assured that Nigerians had nothing to worry about as the commission had made necessary steps, logistics and digital equipment to ensure that the digital or paperless census, which he admitted had already been domesticated in other African countries, succeeded.
UNFPA pledges support
Meanwhile, the United Nations Funds for Population Activities (UNFPA) has said it was committed to supporting Nigeria in carrying out a census of international standard.
UNFPA Chief, Population and Development Branch Technical Division, Rachel Snow, said during a media interaction in Abuja that there have been talks by the federal government to conduct another census in 2022.
Snow said the census was important because it is needed for national developmental plans, adding that the UNFPA would ensure that the census was transparent and 100 per cent inclusive.
“The last census in Nigeria was in 2006, all over the world censuses have been delayed and disrupted due to COVID.
“Nigeria is now preparing for a census and UNFPA stands ready to provide all the technical support we can to ensure that this census will be of the highest international standard, it would be transparent, it would be 100 percent inclusive and it would provide Nigeria with the data that it needs to fulfil its developmental plans.
“Census is a count but it is also a chance to find out where people have moved and this is a country which we know since 2006 has endured displacements and probably like many other countries in the continent has seen a large number of young people moving into the city seeking opportunity. Those are the kinds of information that a census can provide so that development activities can be well planned by the government.
“We look forward to this work; we brought in some of our top technical people, one of whom will be resident now in Nigeria for the coming year too.”
Speaking on the development, a public commentator Yohanna Anas said the exercise was long overdue.
According to Anas, “Periodic exercise as stipulated by law deserved to be captured in annual budgets preceding the exercise so that Nigerians can look forward to it like they do elections. I do not know why it is always a debate whenever exercise like census is to be carried out.
“Knowing full well that we need the data collated to advance our well being economically and what have you, authorities concerned are fond of foot dragging or coming up with excuses to puncture such exercise, why?
“Going forward, I think like they do elections in Nigeria, government should ensure that citizens look forward to the exercise. And as for digitizing the exercise, for me it is part of advancement because other climes had long adopted technology, I just hope it works for us too.”
