Ahead of the 2023 census, the National Population Commission (NPC) has declared that the outcomes of the exercise will rewrite the history of censuses in Nigeria forever.
The NPC Federal Commissioner, representing Ekiti, Mr. Ayodeji Ajayi made this assertion on Monday in Ado-Ekiti.
Speaking at the opening of the ‘State Compendium of Localities Workshop’, organised by the commission to finalise and present to the grassroots, the final list of localities for the 2023 Population and Housing Census.
Ajayi, a former Head of Service in Ekiti State, assured Nigerians that NPC was, ‘irrevocably committed to positively rewrite history of censuses in the country with the coming exercise’.
He pointed out that the objectives of the workshop was to compile all the localities demarcated on local government area basis, showing the coverage and location on interactive maps.
According to him, the compendium of locality in census taking is a tool for census data dissemination, as well as for national development.
‘As such, this means the 2023 census results will be released, up to the lowest level of the census entities across the country, which can be as small as a camp,’ Ajayi said.
He, however, confirmed that more of such localities do not translate to mean higher population for any council area.
‘Please note that in such circumstances, they are just means to enable us, as a commission, to join disparate data, to ease census and for easy interpretation,’ Ajayi said.
He said that the compendium of locality would be presented to President Muhammadu Buhari before 2023 population exercise, as the gazetteer of place names for the country.
The commissioner assured the people that the exercise would deliver to Nigerians, an accurate, reliable and acceptable census that would be purposefully relevant in the drive toward sustainable national development.
Ajayi, therefore, appealed to Nigerians to give the country a dependable data, through the coming census.
Earlier, the Director of NPC in Ekiti, Mr Samuel Adeyanju, said that the workshop was consistent with the determination of the commission.
According to Adeyanju, this is to ensure that the disaggregation of the 2023 population and housing census at the locality level was done in accurate and acceptable manner to all stakeholders.