Kaduna governor pledges support for credible census

Kaduna State Governor, Nasir el-Rufai, said adequate and full cooperation would be given to the National Population Commission (NPC) to ensure accurate and reliable census in the country, saying that the government believes in the use of credible data in policymaking.

El-Rufai who said this when the chairman of NPC, Nasiru Isa Kwarra, paid him a courtesy visit, said Kaduna State Government does not engage in “policymaking in the dark”.

He said: “Kaduna State believes in the use of data, we don’t like policy-making in the dark. And the only way that we can improve the policy-making capability is through the good use of data. We have not had a census since 2006, all the numbers that we have are outdated or from international organisations. Many of which we found to be from guessing.”

El-Rufai also disclosed that the Kaduna Bureau of Statistics has been very active in undertaking all kinds of data collection, pointing out that “every year we do a general household survey.

“We also do GDP surveys every year, undertake yearly schools census and health facilities headcount. And every six months, or so, we carry out opinion polls to test the pulse of our people on what we are doing right and wrong, to effect corrections where necessary.”

The governor remarked that the coming ”census will provide a very good foundation that our Bureau of Statistics can build upon to do more accurate surveys in the future.”

He then assured the commissioner of the total commitment of the government and people of Kaduna to the success of the forthcoming exercise.

The governor further expressed satisfaction that NPC has up to 340 vital registration centres in Kaduna state but pleaded for more centres because “we have 46,000 square kilometres”.

He promised to work with the Commission to open more vital registration centres across the state.

Speaking earlier, the NPC Chairman said that the delegation came to solicit the support of the governor in areas of sensitisation.