Ifeanyi Ibe
Chairman of the National Population Commission (NPC), Nasir Kwarra, Thursday in Abuja, requested the release of the allocated N31 billion capital allocation, in the 2023 budget, for preparatory activities ahead of the census.
Kwarra also requested President Bola Tinubu’s approval for an additional N225.2bn to cover training and fieldwork allowances, retraining of trainers, and the conduct of a second-class Trial Census. He also pegged the total cost of the exercise at N546.72bn.
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He was at the State House to brief the President on the Implementation Status of the 2023 Population and Housing Census, where he requested the issuance of a proclamation for a new Census date later in 2022 or early 2024.
The President’s Special Adviser on Special Duties, Communications and Strategy, Dele Alake, revealed this in a statement he signed on Thursday titled ‘Population Census: President Tinubu pledges support for NPC, calls for data integrity.’
The NPC Chairman noted that the Commission had trained 60,000 instructors who would further train enumerators and supervisors.
He said plans were being concluded for final training but were disrupted due to the transition programme for a new government and funding challenges.
This necessitated the postponement of the exercise by the immediate-past President Muhammadu Buhari, he explained.
Kwarra also highlighted the funding challenges faced by the Commission, saying they were waiting on the President to support NPC and approve the conduct of the census.
He said the agency had demarcated the entire country, stating that only one or two places were left and that this would be done soon.
In a paper titled “Implementation Status of the 2023 Population and Housing Census,” the NPC requested the release of the allocated N31 billion capital allocation, in the 2023 budget, for preparatory activities.
The Commission put the total cost of the Census, after a methodology review, at N546.72 billion.
Kwarra also requested the President’s approval for an additional N225.2 billion to cover training and fieldwork allowances, retraining of trainers, and the conduct of a second-class Trial Census.
President Tinubu was also asked to approve and convene a stakeholders’ meeting with the organised private sector and foreign partners to galvanise funds for the Census.
On the preparations made so far, the NPC Boss informed the President that Nigeria had developed a helpful database for national planning, infrastructure development and revenue generation for the government.
“NPC, having completed Mapping in March 2022, tested the market with the geospatial data by making it available to researchers at a ‘test price’ where it generated over N5 million through REMITA.
“To this end, with fully integrated spatial and statistical data, government geospatial policy and coordination, NPC can generate up to $14 billion and further save a lot of resources for the nation through automation of economic planning by 2028,” Kwarra said.
