After 18 years, the National Population Commission (NPC) has said it has proposed November, 2024, for the Nigerian Population and Housing Census.
The last census conducted in Nigeria was in 2006 and since then, all efforts to conduct this all important exercise hasn’t yielded any result.
Speaking during a press conference to mark the 2024 World Population Day, the Chairman of NPC, Nasir Isa Kwarra, said the proposal was, however, subject to the approval of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
Kwarra, who stated that the commission was 70 per cent ready to conduct the census, said the delay in Nigeria having data of its population would not prevent the country from achieving the UN 2020 Round of Population & Housing Censuses.
It would be recalled that Nigeria is yet to conduct a national census in the past 18 years, while there was hope that it would be conducted in 2023, former President Muhammad Buhari cancelled it at the twilight of his administration.
“In the beginning of the year, we wanted to conduct a census in November, but we are waiting for that nod. If that is given, we will swing into action and before the end of 2024 we will be able to conduct a very good census for Nigeria. We are still prepared. A lot of money has been spent. Since it is a digital census, we have over 760,000 PDAs that we are supposed to use for the census. This equipment has been bought for over a year now. With such equipment, if you don’t use them and the batteries go down, we run the risk of losing a lot of these facilities. It is important we have the resources to kick-start the process.”
He added that the commission now had digital maps for the census and other surveys, and that the completion of the census would provide the country with relevant data to track every citizen in the country.
On his part, the Statistician General of the Federation, Adeyemi Adeniran, said data from the census was crucial to the development of the country and helped to address some issues contributing to poverty.
For good of nigar