PARIS OLYMPIC GAMES
The 2023 population and housing census scheduled for between May 3 and May 5 may have run into logistic hitches as funds required for the execution of the exercise has not been sourced by the Federal Government barely 11 days away.
A whopping $1.8 billion (N869 billion) is required by the government for the census to be conducted by the National Population Commission (NPC) out of which about N200b has been allegedly released, Per Second News reports.
The exercise, which was earlier scheduled for March 25, was shifted to April 2 as a result of the presidential, governorship and parliamentary elections.
Persecondnews gathered that the government is facing serious challenges in sourcing funds for the humongous budget for the exercise with less than 37 days to the end of the President Muhammadu Buhari administration.
On payment of enumerators and allowances of officials alone, it was discovered about N8 billion would be expended on the sub-head with officials being earmarked between N20, 000 and N65, 000 daily allowances throughout the three-day enumeration exercise.
Several hundreds of millions of Naira was also allocated for transportation and other logistics.
It was learnt that apart from finance, security, ethnic profiling, violence and political crises stoked by the February 25 and March 11 national elections are potential threats to the May 3 census.
Nigerians had criticized the government’s decision to commit $1.8 billion to the census and called for its postponement till after national reconciliation by the incoming administration.
Economic analysts, well-meaning Nigerians and stakeholders said the amount budgeted for the exercise can build 19, 000 classrooms and 30,000 Primary Health Centres (PHC) and execute other projects across the country.
The NPC established in accordance with Section 153 (1) of the Nigerian Constitution is to among others :
- Undertake the enumeration of the population of Nigeria periodically through census, sample surveys or otherwise.
- To establish and maintain machinery for continuous and universal registration of births and deaths.
- Publish and provide information and data on population for the purpose of facilitating economic and development planning.
- House numbering for the delination exercise for census, collect, collate and publish data on migration statistics.
The organizers had announced that the 2023 census will be Nigeria’s first digital census and will change how the census is being conducted, thereby increasing the accuracy of data with demarcation of enumeration areas done by using mobile phone devise, Geographic Information System (GIS) and satellite imageries to create the digital census map.
Dr Garba Abari, a member of the Commission’s Publicity and Advocacy Committee and Director-General of the National Orientation Agency (NOA), also said the results of the exercise would aid national planning and execution of development projects – infrastructure, seucirty, education, health and other demographic considerations.
Persecondnews recalls that amid financial crisis, the Federal Executive Council (FEC) had on April 5, 2023 approved N15.3 billion for the installation of ICT components for the census without cash backing.
Only last week, NPC had approached FEC for funds but to no avail.
The current population of Nigeria is estimated at 220.4 million while the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has projected that by 2050, it will jump to 450 million.
In 1991, the country established the National Population Commission (NPC) under Decree 23 of 1989 and conducted a census which was at that time regarded as the most scientific and acceptable. The 1991 census placed Nigeria’s population at 89 million.
Fifteen years later, in 2006, Nigeria conducted a population and housing census and the outcome revealed that the country had a population of 140 million people.
By UN standards, population and housing census should be conducted every 10 years. However, the last census conducted in Nigeria was in 2006, about 17 years ago.
Persecondnews also recalls that censuses had been conducted in 1962, 1963, 1973, 1991 and 2006 which marred by irregularities, controversies and falsification of figures for political gains.
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