Census in Nigeria highly politicised, says Masari

KATSINA State Governor, Aminu Masari, yesterday, lamented that past population censuses conducted in the country did not achieve intended purpose, as they were “highly and wrongly politicised.”

Masari, who spoke during the 2023 Population and Housing Census stakeholders’ summit in the state, said politicisation of past censuses was what had kept the country from developing the way it should have.

The summit was organised by the National Population Commission (NPC).He said nations of the world, which had experienced substantial growth and development, had, at one time or the other, conducted non-partisan census exercises to know how to equally distribute wealth.

He, however, said that with the availability of modern technology, there were expectations that the 2023 census would not be as defective as past ones conducted in the country.

Insisting that censuses in Nigeria had been politicized, Masari said: “For those of us, who are 70 years and above, politics of census, I can remember, started in 1963 when I was in Primary Seven, when we were drafted to go and conduct census after the first one was cancelled.

“And for some of us, who came from villages, it was our first time meeting other people from the Southern part of the country, who came to witness the census.

“That has been going on in subsequent census. Even the ones conducted by the military were not devoid of politics of regional, tribal, and religious dimensions.

“That makes us to completely misunderstand the core purpose of census.

“But we hope that this time around, we will achieve near-perfect census, in terms of knowing how many we are in this country.”

He called on stakeholders to ensure the next census in the country is not branded another “politics of numbers,” but “quality of numbers,” which would lead to socio-economic transformation of the country as a whole.