‘Exercise To Hold Between March/April’
The National Population Commission (NPC), yesterday, assured Nigerians that it would deploy available cutting-edge technology to avert manipulation during the conduct of the 2023 census.
Chairman of the Commission, Nasir Isa Kwarra, who gave the assurance while speaking with newsmen after he met with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, also declared that the technology to be deployed would make it difficult for anyone to manipulate the process.
Fielding questions, Kwarra said the exercise would be different from the previous ones, which he said, were marred by controversies, stressing that the Commission would be making use of cutting-edge technology, including Global Positioning System (GPS) and satellite images.
According to him, every building in the country has already been coded for the purpose.
“This census is going to be different from past censuses. The theory and practice is essentially the same, but we are using high-end technology to conduct this census and it’s such that nobody can tamper with any figure. Nobody will be counted more than once.
“We’re visiting households to do direct interface with the household, collect data and in the past if you are doing an operation manually, it’s very cumbersome. But this is being aided by technology and I believe it’s going to be transparent and very fast and it is going to be verifiable because we are able to provide data up to local government, up to wards level. So, it is something that you can always verify,” he said.
Kwarra said the demarcation of enumeration areas has already been completed, stating further that the exercise would take place between late March and early April this year, specifically from March 29 to April 2, 2023.
“By March 29 to April 2, our staff will be in the field enumerating people,” he noted. He disclosed that a portal has already been opened by the Commission to recruit ad-hoc staff for the conduct of the exercise, adding that people recruited would be deployed to work in their localities.
Speaking against the backdrop of security challenges in parts of the country, he assured that the exercise would be conducted smoothly in the areas affected.
