National Population Commission (NPC), Federal Commissioner in Niger, Malam Muhammad Dattijo Usman has said the postponement of National Population census had no connection with unpreparedness by the commission.
Dattijo Usman stated this while responding to questions from journalists in Minna, Niger State at IBB Pen House (NUJ state secretariat) recently.
“The postponement of the Population and Housing Census in Nigeria under the outgoing President Muhammadu Buhari- led administration was not due to the unpreparedness of the commission. We are only waiting for directive to commence the census under the incoming administration of the President-elect, Bola Tinubu any moment from now”.
He further assured people in hard-to-reach areas in Niger State, particularly in the four local government areas of Munya, Mariga, Shiroro and Rafi affected by banditry, that they will be counted.
He added: “We also want to add that training and retraining of officials to manage the exercise remain paramount to the commission. Officials of the census will work in their locality to avoid unnecessary mistakes during the exercise. It will be different from all other censuses that have been held in the country”.
The hard-to-reach areas according to him, include Munya, Rafi, Mariga and Shiroro Local Government where bandits have taken over the area in recent time.
Dattijo Usman while calling on journalists across the country to support the noble task, was quick to add that the NPC’s primary purpose is to undertake the enumeration of the population of Nigeria periodically through census.
The federal commissioner reiterated that the commission is fully prepared for the census exercise in the country, adding that it is going to be completely digital and transformative, the first of its kind in the country.
He stated further that it has carried out 33 activities, with the two remaining ones ongoing which he said is the testing of newly procured PDAs and testing and retesting of census application.
He pointed out that the Federal Government is equally in a high-level partner engagement to galvanize support for the 2023 Population and Housing Census.
