“It’ll be the best-ever’ — NPC assures Nigerians of readiness to conduct census

The National Population Commission (NPC) says the
forthcoming census will be technology-driven.

Abubakar Danburam, a federal commissioner at NPC, spoke on
Tuesday during the inauguration of a 16-member advocacy and logistics committee
for the 2023 population and housing census in Gombe state.

Danburam said the use of technology and other measures taken
so far would ensure that the census would be better than the previous ones.

The commissioner said the census would correct the
inadequacies recorded in the past.

 “I can remember very
well the 1963 census, there were lots of irregularities due to lack of
development,” NAN quoted him as saying.

“Subsequent censuses came up with a lot of improvements. The
current census to be conducted, from the level of demarcation, is digital.

“It is so because we are now mature enough to use the
satellite image. The satellite image was used for the demarcation and the
demarcation is called the enumeration area demarcation (EAD).

 “This demarcation was
done meticulously and neatly. Every part of this country has been demarcated,
with no leftover, no overlap.

“This is giving us all the assurance that the census to be
conducted will be digital and hopefully the best census conducted so far in
this country.”

During the inauguration, Manassah Jatau, the deputy governor
of  Gombe, who is also the chairman of
the committee said the exercise would provide important information concerning
the socio-economic characteristics of Nigeria’s population.

He advised the commission to be proactive in curbing the
issue of manipulation and conduct a census that will be internationally
acceptable.

 “The digital census
is most likely to eliminate previous bottlenecks such as political, religious,
and cultural sentiments associated with the census in the country over the
years,” the deputy governor said.

“However, we should note that it is human beings that
control and sometimes manipulate these machines that were meant for ease of
carrying out tasks, jobs more accurately, with great precision.”

TheCable had reported that the federal executive council
(FEC) approved the sum of N15.3 billion for the supply and installation of
information and communication technology (ICT) devices for the population
census.

The population and housing census will commence on May 3.