THE National Population Commission (NPC) has disclosed that it will apply technological innovations in the conduct of the 2023 national population census in order to generate accurate data.
The Commissioner representing Ekiti in the NPC, Deji Ajayi, who made the disclosure at a press briefing in Ado Ekiti, said with technological innovations, the outcome of the census cannot be manipulated.
Ajayi said, “This is the first time we will be doing a paperless census; everything will be digital to check corruption and bring about accurate data that can help national development.
“The government will also use such statistics to plan for our youths, students, and the health needs of Nigerians. They will also know the number of those to be catered for.
“Technology is open to manipulation, but NPC has gone a step higher by having an updated technological innovation that can prevent multiple registrations.
“The biometric technology will capture your face and fingerprints and goes to the server and any similar information supplied will be noticed and expunged from the data immediately,” he said.
Ajayi, who spoke to journalists at a press conference organised to herald a trial census to be conducted in Ekiti State, said about one million personnel will be involved in the national population census.
According to him, managing such a huge workforce manually will raise huge logistical and documentation challenges.
“It is in recognition of this fact that the NPC resolved that recruitment for the 2023 census will be done electronically. This trial census will provide an opportunity to test the feasibility of the e-recruitment,” he added.
He disclosed that nine towns across nine local government areas have been selected and delineated into Enumerated Areas for the trial census.
The towns are Ado, Emure, Iro, Ijero, Ikole, Iworoko, Ise, Ikun, and Omu Ekiti.
The ICIR reported that the next Population and Housing Census in the country will be held in April 2023.
The last population and housing census in Nigeria conducted in 2006 put the country’s population at 140 million.
Nurudeen Akewushola is an investigative reporter and fact-checker with The ICIR. He believes courageous in-depth investigative reporting is the key to social justice, accountability and good governance in society. You can reach him via [email protected] and @NurudeenAkewus1 on Twitter.