THE chairman of the National Population Commission (NPC), Nasir Kwarra, has stated that the census will still be conducted in 2023 despite the threat of insecurity since residents of Sambisa Forest will also be counted.
He added that because the Enumeration Area Demarcation (EAD) EAD had previously counted the homes in the forest, so nothing would prevent the government from carrying out the census in other parts of the nation.
Kwarra stated this on Wednesday in Abuja at a presentation at the 24th edition of President Buhari Administration Scorecard.
He stated that the enumeration had made the commission to have digital data of every house in the nation, the method, he maintained would stop inaccurate data from being collected during the exercise.
When asked how much money had been spent on the exercise thus far, he responded that about N100bn had gone into the exercise’s preparation phase.
He said, “We started the enumeration area demarcation about five years ago; the money that was given was small, but when Mr President came on board and made up his mind that the census should hold, he gave us an initial sum of N10bn for us to do the EAD.
“This is because it is an exercise that requires the use of technology and we have been able to produce a digital map of the houses in the country with the use of digital technology, GIS, GPS, satellite imageries and deploying people to all the nook and cranny of this country. In the conduct of the preparatory activities of the census, the greater chunk of money came in the 2022 national budget as we were given N197bn, though not all has been disbursed.”
On his part, the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, said the exercise would positively rewrite the history of census in Nigeria through meticulous planning and massive deployment of technology.
