The National Population Commission, NPC says it is ready to conduct the National Housing and Population Census, but waiting for the go-ahead from the incoming government of President-elect Bola Tinubu.
Speaking during a press briefing today, the NPC’s Director of Census, Dr Isiaka Yahaya, stated that contrary to reports that ill-preparedness led to the postponement, the commission had built strong foundation for the process.
He explained that the commission having conducted the first and second pre-test of the census materials as well as a trial census, is on the right track to conduct Nigeria’s first digital census.
He explained further that the commission has obtained the enumeration area information of all the 774 local governments areas in the country.
He refuted claims that there was no awareness of the census, saying that over 3 million Nigerians applied for the ad-hoc recruitment it called for out of which 855,600 people were selected.
On his part, the Census Manager of the commission, Inuwa Jalingo, said the commission has leveraged on the United Nations’ standards for the digital census.
He said the commission has data on Nigeria’s geo-spatial information that other government agencies have been using to carry out their own activities.
He added that the commission was already in possession of over 400,000 tablets to be used for the census and they had all been sent to Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN branches nationwide