Need To Prioritise Census Conduct By Tinubu Administration

By Chibuzor Emejor

Undoubtedly, the importance of an accurate, acceptable and reliable population and housing census cannot be over-emphasised. To ensure holistic national development, an accurate census is very indispensable. The conduct of a census helps to generate demographic data for national planning
which in turn ensures even development of all sectors of the country.

President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR

One of the reasons for Nigeria’s under-devel¬opment, according to experts, could be linked to outdated, inaccurate and some¬times lack of robust data for plan-ning.

Speaking about the importance of the census, Dr. Hope Ikedinma, in a paper entitled, “The Impact of Census on National Develop¬ment: An Appraisal of Nigerian Past Censuses,” observed that “In Nigeria, planning for socio-eco¬nomic development has been ad¬versely affected by the inadequacy, obsolescence and unreliability of available demographic data. Past national development plans in Ni¬geria have failed simply because of a lack of demographic data for planning. Demographic data de-rived from population censuses are useful to every government for planning.

“Planning for development without the most fundamental fact i.e. the number and characteris¬tics of the people whose welfare is to be improved and those among this number who must work in all sectors of the economy to bring about the much-needed develop¬ment is tantamount to groping in the dark.”

While underscoring the advan¬tages of the census, the United Nations Population Fund (UN¬FPA), explained that the census “represents the entire statistical universe, down to the smallest geographical units, of a country or region. Planners need this in¬formation for all kinds of devel¬opment work, including assessing demographic trends; analysing so¬cio-economic conditions; design¬ing evidence-based poverty-re¬duction strategies; monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of policies; and tracking progress toward national and internation¬ally agreed development goals.”

In recognition of this, former President Muhammadu Bu-hari-led administration made a proclamation or approved the National Population Commission (NPC), which statutorily saddled with the conduct of the Population and Housing Census.

Buhari administration had re¬iterated the critical need for the conduct of a Population and Hous¬ing Census, 17 years after the last census was conducted, to collect up-to-date data that would drive the developmental goals of the country and improve the living standard of the Nigerian people.

Given this, the National Popula¬tion Commission led by its Execu¬tive Chairman, Nasir Isa Kwarra, swung into action as the Commis¬sion had begun preparations in earnest. It would be recalled that since Nigeria’s independence in 1960, all efforts at conducting a na¬tional census had met with serious challenges, as past censuses conducted in Nigeria had been mired in controversies as a cross-section of the country vehemently rejected the outcome of the census exercise.

In this direction, the NPC boss assured of the Commission’s irrevocable commitment to positively re-write the history of the census in Nigeria. At a media parley in Abuja, Kwarra revealed that cutting-edge technology would be deployed in the forthcoming 2023 Population and Housing Census to guarantee its credibility.

He said: “Over the years, the Commission has invested consid¬erable time and resources in plan¬ning for the 2023 Population and Housing census by drawing from its rich institutional experience spanning two censuses and a pool of tested professionals to give the nation a truly digital and scientif¬ic census that will generate data for national planning within the context of our present realities. I am pleased to inform you all that the outcome of the preparatory activities for the 2023 Population and Housing census has been reassuring.”

NPC Chairman Hon. Nasir Isa Kwarra

Commenting further on the activities that have been carried out by the Commission in prepara¬tion for the Census, the Director of Public Affairs in NPC, Dr. Isiaka Yahaya, said, “The first preparatory activity for the 2023 Popula¬tion and Housing Census was the Enumeration Area Demarcation (EAD) which the Commission implemented in phases on an in¬cremental basis spanning over 8 years. The EAD involved the divi¬sion of the 774 Local Government Areas of the country into Enu¬meration Areas. The Enumera¬tion Area Demarcation was done digitally from 2014 to 2022.

“Major cost elements in the EAD project include the acquisi¬tion of high-resolution satellite imageries of entire land space of Nigeria and equipment, de¬ployment of logistics across the country and training and deploy¬ment of tens of thousands of ad-hoc workers for several months to carry out the field operations.

“Another major cost element of the 2023 Census is the series of test runs carried out by the Commis¬sion to determine the appropri¬ateness or otherwise of the meth-odology, processes and systems being put in place for the exercise. The Commission carried out an elaborate consultative process in designing a census questionnaire that responded to the country’s data needs for sustainable devel¬opment.

“A series of workshops involv¬ing academia, professional bodies, civil society organisations and stakeholders was organised at the national and state levels between 2015 and 2017.

“The first pretest was conduct¬ed between 31st May 2021 and 13th June 2021 in the thirty-six states of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory while the second Pretest with larger coverage and broader objectives was conducted from November 24th to December 10th, 2021 also in the 36 states of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). These test runs cost huge amounts of money in terms of training, deployment of personnel, and procurement of equipment and software.

“The Commission conducted a Trial Census in July 2022. The Trial Census was a dress rehearsal of the main census and was con¬ducted to assess the overall pre¬paredness for the conduct of the 2023 Census and it took place in all 36 states of the federation and the FCT with over 13,000 personnel trained, deployed and paid allow¬ances for the training and field¬work for about one month.

“In addition to the procurement of computers, laptops, desktops, printers and solar power systems for the census, the Commission de¬veloped numerous soft wares not only for census operations but also to manage its processes.

“The software procured for the census includesCensuspad and CSentry for data collection, Azure Cloud Infrastructure for managing data storage, security and processing and Environmen¬tal Systems Research Institute (ESRI) geospatial data for inte¬gration, analysis and utilisation. In recognition of its work in the 2023 Census EAD, the Commission received the Special Achievement in GIS (SAG) award at the 2022 Us¬ers Conference of ESRI held at its headquarters, in California, Unit¬ed States. ESRI is the World’s Lead¬ing Developer of GIS Software.

“Other software acquired in¬clude Enumeration Dashboard for monitoring of data quality and coverage Geo spatial dashboard, recruitment portal, logistics man-agement information system and Mobile Device Monitoring Sys¬tem. The most significant hard¬ware for the 2023 Census is the Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) or tablets to be used for data col¬lection and transmission during the census.

“The Commission procured a total of 810,000 PDAs for the 2023 Census. Given this huge number, the item was procured in phases and a significant proportion of these mini-computers have been procured, configured, and now stored in all the Central Bank Offices across the country. For a census project that has been de¬scribed next to war in terms of mobilisation of human and ma-terial resources, the movement of personnel across the length and breadth of the country will definitely constitute a major cost element.

“The Commission procured ve¬hicles, motorcycles and boats for the movement of personnel and equipment across the length and breadth of the country. This was done along with the renovation and equipping of all 37 states and 774 Local Government offices for effective operational activities and storage for the 2023 Census. Con¬ducting a digital census requires a constant supply of electricity not only in the cities but also in the hinterland and hard-to-reach areas of the country for charging PDAs and other equipment. Given the epileptic nature of the power supply across the country, the Commission procured generators, power banks and install solar pow-er systems across the country.

“The Commission had trained about 62,000 facilitators across the country who will in turn train about 850,000 Supervisors and Enumerators for the Census exer¬cise. In all these preparations, the NPC chairman acknowledged that over N200 billion had been expend¬ed over nine years in preparation for the population and housing census.

However, after all the prepara¬tions, former President Buhari postponed the conduct of the 2023 Population and Housing Census, earlier scheduled for 3-7 May 2023, to a date to be determined by Pres¬ident Bola Tinubu’s administra¬tion.

In light of all these expendi¬tures and preparations made by the Commission, many well-mean¬ing Nigerians and bodies such as traditional and religious leaders, civil society organisations, policy¬makers, development partners, ac¬ademia and the media have made a clarion call to President Ahmed Bola Tinubu, to as a matter of ur-gency, prioritise the conduct of population and housing census in 2023 for evidence-based demo¬graphic data for planning and na¬tional development.

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