- To personally announce new dates for national census
From Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
President Bola Tinubu has expressed disappointment with the delay in conducting the national census 17 years after it was conducted in 2006.
The president who expressed his unwavering support for the National Population Commission (NPC) to conduct an accurate Population and Housing Census in the country, however, stressed the need for data integrity.
According to a statement issued by Special Adviser on Special Duties, Communications and Strategy, Dele Alake, the President spoke after receiving a briefing from NPC Chairman, Nasir Kwarra, in the State House on Thursday.
The President emphasised the need for the commission to be prudent in their assignment and work towards producing census data that would be credible and reliable.
Tinubu urged the NPC to view this delay as an opportunity to cash in on the advantages of the current electronic and digital age.
“It is disappointing that up until now we have not been able to conduct another enumeration of our people. I hope that this delay will be converted into a great opportunity in this electronic and digital age.
“The challenge is yours and I hope that during the demarcation you did, you would have noticed the migration of people to urban centres because of the extreme poverty and unemployment.
“Digitalizing the process will make your job easier and I don’t see why we don’t, by now, have a reliable database in Nigeria to identify ourselves and ascertain our numbers for planning purposes and in time of disaster.
“I have listened to you and we will support you. Accuracy and integrity of your data are very important to Nigerians and to our national economic development programmes.
“We will support you but you have to be prudent and be determined to make a name for yourself. Good luck,” the President said.
The NPC Chairman informed the president that the Commission was on the verge of conducting the final training for the Census before they were caught up with the transition programme for a new government and funding challenges, necessitating the postponement of the exercise by the immediate-past President.
In his brief on the Implementation Status of the 2023 Population and Housing Census, requested the issuance of a proclamation for a new Census date later this year or early next year.
Kwarra also highlighted the funding challenges faced by the Commission, saying they were waiting on the President to support NPC and give the go-ahead for the conduct of the census.
He said the commission had demarcated the entire country, stating that only one or the two places were left and that this would be done soon.
Kwarra said the commission had also trained 60,000 instructors that would further train enumerators and supervisors.
The NPC boss also requested the release of the N31 billion capital allocation, in the 2023 budget, for preparatory activities.
He 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 stakeholder meeting with the organized private sector and foreign partners to galvanise funds for the census.
Kwarra informed the President that Nigeria has developed a database that can be useful in 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 N50 million through REMITA.
“To this end, with a full integrated spatial and statistical data, government geospatial policy and coordination, NPC can generate up to 14 billion dollars and further save a lot of resources for the nation through automation of economic planning by 2028,” he said.
Fielding questions from State House Correspondents, Kwarra disclosed that President Tinubu will personally announce new dates for the national population and housing census that was postponed last April.
He said the President is expected to study the report submitted and come to an informed decision about when the exercise would be held nationwide.
He hinted that the Commission might have to make more requests for financial provisions, pointing out that the longer the exercise is delayed, the more likely it becomes for financial needs to expand.
“We briefed him fully on the level of our preparedness, the outcomes that we envisage and I’ll like to say that Mr President has graciously approved to support the Commission in the conduct of census and our preparatory activities, though we’re not stuck at all, but he has given us the courage and the impetus to upscale our preparation.
“So we’ll continue our preparations and we’ll hear from him eventually, the date that the census will take place because we’ve made a submission to him that he will study before getting back to us. But as for the assurance of support, he has given that to us and we thank him immensely for this for also realizing the importance of data for the purpose of national planning and development,” he said.
On fears expressed by the NPC commissioner in Ekiti State that all the money released to the commission (N200 billion) may go to waste if the exercise does not hold as soon as possible, he said: “Yes, it’s true that we may have to incur additional expenses if we stay much longer than necessary. But in this situation, we have given the president full brief including the implication if there’s further delay in the conduct of the census. So, we are very mindful and Mr President is very amenable to be able to entertain our requests.”
“As for the expenditure of N200 billion, no doubt, we have incurred that expenditure. Conducting a digital census is not cheap and mind you, this is like a foundational census.
“Subsequent censuses will not be this expensive because we’ve established a frame that we can only be updating. And going forward with improvement in ICT, we will employ more methodologies that will save money for us.
“What we are doing now is Computer-Assisted Personal Interviews (CAPI), that is visiting every household in the country to enumerate. When there is improvement in telecommunication, we are hoping we can do telephony, we can do web, where we can throw in questionnaires and people will respond without having to deploy personnel into the field.
“That is looking into the next census beyond this one that we are planning to conduct. And this expenditure as I had said before, starts in 2014 to where we are now, we’re still going to seek more money, to be able to complete the census and once this census is conducted Nigeria will change completely.
“The completion of the census and the resources that we have acquired in the process of conducting the census will more than pay back that N200 billion that you are talking about and the government will even have some surpluses in the coffers by the time we finish conducting the census.”
Asked to clarify how the money is an investment since the commission is not a revenue-making agency, Kwarra said: “It’s an investment because, in the process of preparing for the census, we’re able to generate geospatial data that will bring in income to the government. It’s not just scan data. The geospatial data will rake in money for the government.”
Throwing more light on how the investments in the census will benefit the country in the future, the commissioner from Ogun State in the council, Yeyo Aderinokun Olusanya, said: “Just like the Chairman has just said that the money that has been spent especially for pre-field exercise for the census is actually going to be a huge investment for Nigeria because the geospatial industry all over the world has a very bright future. And Nigeria happens to be one of the first in Africa that has generated the kind of data geospatial data that we have generated for the Census.
“This geospatial data is meant to be integrated with the statistical data that you are going to collect on the field. And that means that every population and housing data we are generating is going to be geo-referenced. And aside from that, we are creating a lot of other geospatial resources like a compendium of localities for the entire country.
“We are right now collaborating with NIPOST and we are delineating Nigeria into the postcode area, which is the second in Africa. And you know that Nigeria is doing a lot towards a digital economy and with the postcode area delineation we are going to come up with the addresses system for the country, and there are other resources.
“If you go online, you will see that the geospatial industry by the year 2028 will be generating up to $145 billion. And Nigeria is poised to right with the geospatial resources that we have generated in the course of preparing for the census to be part of those who will benefit from the geospatial industry.
“Right now. I’m sure you are seeing a lot of the presence of Bill and Melinda Gates in Nigeria. In Africa generally, they are investing a lot in coming up with geospatial data. And we are saying Africa for Africa, our terrain is different from the Western world and these are things we are taking into consideration in coming up with geospatial data for Nigeria.
“We have a unique schema that is identifying every locality in Nigeria even up to the smallest settlements, we are not just doing that we are going beyond demarcating in the country into rural and urban. We are going into six classifications, which is the first time a country in Africa is doing this. So if a chairman is saying that, what Nigeria has spent on generation of geospatial data is an investment is not mincing words.”