Hon. Benjamin Kalu who is the Deputy speaker of the House of Representatives, has called on the newly inaugurated board of the National Population Commission (NPC) to ensure that the next housing and population census is credible.
Kalu, gave the charge while speaking at the inauguration dinner of the federal commissioner representing Abia State at the NPC board, Chief Emmanuel Trump Eke over the weekend in Abuja.
The deputy speaker noted that knowing the figure was essential to economic planning, and the spread of infrastructure across the country. He stated that it was not right to continue to hazard a guess about the country’s population each time the issue arose.
He said: “The charge to you people as commissioners is to be honest, we don’t know our number in Nigeria. We cannot keep claiming we are the giant of Africa when we don’t have accurate statistics of our actual number as a nation. It’s embarrassing. Each time they ask you of your population, you said about…When are we going to drop this ‘about,’ that descriptive thing to our number? You people should make it exact.
“When we call Ogun State, you tell us the number. We call Abia, you tell us. Total number in the South East, you give us. Total in the South West, North West, South South, etc, you give us, so that we can plan because economic planning without actual knowledge of the population is a waste of time, because you might plan for a few and the infrastructure will be overused by the much you did not capture.
Read Also: Half Of Gaza’s Population Currently Starving, UN Raises Alarm
“So, the root of our economic planning is knowing our number and knowing the demography, so that when we want to do project allocation, the spread will be guided by the population. So, the census is what you have to do as a service to this nation.
“Push it hard and make sure that when the result comes, Nigerians will be glad to say, yes, we are 250 million, but I can assure you that by the time you are done, we might be 300 million, because we projected that we are going to be, I think, the fourth most populous nation in a few coming years, and every nation in the world is looking towards Nigeria for investment because they know the market is there.”
Kalu also commended President Tinubu for running an all-inclusive government, appointing the Igbo in coveted positions of authority, despite receiving a poor number of votes from the region in the last presidential election.
He expressed gratitude to the Igbo for not participating in the recent protest against the present administration over economic hardship.