Only President Ahmed Bola Tinubu can take a decision on the date for the 2023 National Population and Housing Census according to the Federal Commissioner of the National Population Commission, NPC, Enugu State, Hon. Ejike Eze. Eze stated this Thursday during a breakfast meeting with media executives in Enugu on the forthcoming National Population and Housing Census. The Enugu State NPC boss allayed the fears of the media that the new administration might discontinue the census exercise, expressing confidence that the President, being an accountant and technocrat, appreciates the importance of census information in national planning, especially in policy and programme formulation, budgeting, among others. Eze said the Commission welcomed the decision of the last administration to postpone the conduct of the census in order to give the new administration the opportunity to make inputs into the process. He noted that the postponement afforded the commission the opportunity to further perfect its processes and systems for the conduct of the first ever digital National Population and Housing Census in Nigeria. Harping on the importance of census, he explained that a reliable census data will, among numerous other benefits, immeasurably assist President Tinubu in solving the socio-economic problems arising from the removal of fuel subsidy, including the implementation of palliative measures. According to him, the objective of the breakfast meeting was to update the media on the status of preparations for the 2023 Census and the next steps forward, in the light of the postponement. He said, “As you are aware, the Commission has carried out all the preparatory activities towards the census such as the Enumeration Area Demarcation (EAD), conduct of pre tests and trial census, recruitment and training of census field staff, procurement and configuration of Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), establishment of ICT infrastructure across the country and logistics support and advocacy and publicity activities. “Conscious of the enormous human and material resources that have been expended in the implementation of these preparatory activities, the most important task before the commission is to sustain and reinforce the relevance of these activities to the successful conduct of the 2023 Census. This will ensure that the nation does not have to start afresh, the conduct of the census thereby saving costs. “The processes and systems put in place for the census are therefore being currently reviewed to determine what needs to be done to ensure that the preparations do not become obsolete for the census. The focus of the commission is to ensure that all the resources expended so far are safeguarded and that the nation does not need to start all over when the census is going to be conducted. “For us at NPC, this is not a difficult task. In coming up with the plan for the 2023 Census, we were not only looking at the immediate needs of delivering the next census, but concerned more with laying a solid foundation for future censuses. “This mindset informed the scope and quality of arrangements put in place. For example, the EAD, which involved the division of the country into small land areas, was meticulously undertaken in such a way that only an update will be required for future censuses. Using satellite imageries, the Enumeration Areas (EAs) were all geo referenced with the coordinates of all the buildings established. The products of the EAD are currently being used by other government agencies.”
