According to Nasir Kwarra, the Chairman of the National Population Commission (NPC), President Bola Tinubu would set a new date for the country’s population and housing census.
Following a meeting between the commission and the president on Thursday, Mr. Kwarra made this statement to the media.
Due to the most recent general elections, which were held in March and April, the NPC had postponed the census indefinitely.
“We briefed him fully on the level of our preparedness, the outcomes that we envisage, and I’ll like to say that Mr President has graciously approved to support the commission in the conduct of census and our preparatory activities, though we’re not stuck at all, he has given us the courage and the impetus to upscale our preparation.
“So we’ll continue our preparations, and we’ll hear from him eventually, the date that the census will take place because we’ve made a submission to him that he will study before getting back to us. But as for the assurance of support, he has given that to us, and we thank him immensely for also realizing the importance of data for the purpose of national planning and development,” he said.
Regarding concerns raised by the NPC commissioner in Ekiti State that all of the money released to the commission (N100 billion out of N200 billion) may be wasted if the exercise does not take place as soon as possible, Mr. Kwarra responded, “Yes, it is true that we may have to incur additional costs if we stay much longer than necessary. However, in this instance, we have provided the president with a thorough briefing that includes the implications of any further delays in the census conducted. We are therefore very careful, and Mr. President is very willing to accommodate our wishes.
“Subsequent censuses will not be this expensive because we’ve established a frame that we can only be updating. And going forward with improvement in ICT, we will employ more methodologies that will save money for us.
“What we are doing now is Computer-Assisted Personal Interviews (CAPI), that is visiting every household in the country to enumerate. When there is improvement in telecommunication, we are hoping we can do telephony; we can do the web, where we can throw in questionnaires, and people will respond without having to deploy personnel into the field.
“That is looking into the next census beyond this one that we are planning to conduct. And this expenditure, like I had said before, it starts from 2014 to where we are now. We’re still going to seek more money, we will be able to complete the census, and once this census is conducted, Nigeria will change completely.
“The completion of the census and the resources that we have acquired in the process of conducting the census will more than pay back that N200 billion that you are talking about, and the government will even have some surpluses in the coffers by the time we finish conducting the census.”
Asked to clarify how the money is an investment since the commission is not a revenue-making agency, Mr Kwarra said, “It’s an investment because, in the process of preparing for the census, we’re able to generate geospatial data that will bring in income to the government. It’s not just scanning data. The geospatial data will rake in money for the government.”
