On Thursday, 14th April 2022, Nigerians were once again, for the umpteenth time, informed that the next national population census would be conducted in the country after the general elections scheduled to hold in February and March, 2023.
The Director-General (DG) of Nigeria Population Commission (NPC), Mr. Nasir Isa-Kwarra made the disclosure at the end of the Council of State meeting, presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
According to the DG, a pilot census would be conducted in June 2022 by the NPC after various political parties must have held their respective primary elections as stipulated by the electoral guidelines.
It’s noteworthy that the last census was held in August 2006. Since then, the teeming Nigerians have been faced with myriad of promises from the NPC, yet till date the citizens still await the conduct of the exercise, perhaps owing to failures or insincerity on the part of the government and the concerned authorities.
In his words, the NPC boss stated the commission was targeting to carry out the next one in April 2023, saying it would deploy high technology in the conduct of the national census.
Mr. Isa-Kwarra said, “It is very crucial because I have highlighted that the census is a very important exercise for the nation. Through census, we generate the data that we use for policy making, for planning, for development, by the three tiers of government, and the private sector. They all need this.
“If you are a private sector, and you are producing something, certainly, you need to know the population of an area if you want to create a market there.
“So, census data is very crucial, very important. The data we have been using are just projections, and estimation and are sort of obsolete, we need the actual census data to use for our planning.” he landed.
One may want to know if the NPC boss was kidding Nigerians or really serious over those statements made by his person. It’s indeed imperative to critically address the announcement because it was simply laughable and incoherent.
One could the commission be targeting to conduct the country’s population census after the general elections? The statement became more unreasonable and ridiculous when the NPC DG mentioned that every sector requires data to carry out crucial activities.
If he was truly aware that every sector needed data to perform critical duties, why was unaware that such information is mostly required towards the impending national elections come 2023?
Worse still, to make more mockery of Nigeria, he ‘thought it wise’ to notify the citizens that the needed census would be kept pending till after the elections. It suffices to assert that the required data for the polls would be acquired after the elections. Indeed, ‘there was a country’!
In accordance with the extant law, the Population Census is meant to be conducted every ten years in the country. Hence, it’s so saddening to note that the last exercise was carried out since 2006, yet as I write, no tangible effort or move has been, or is being, made to ensure the next one is done soonest. Who is deceiving who?
Nigerians have, without equivocations, had enough of this pattern of deceits. It’s needless to say that the governments need to deploy a new method of playing pranks on the citizenry. For crying out loud, they can’t continue to sing the same song that has already been perceived by all to be deceptive and misleading.
Nigeria is apparently fast becoming synonymous with ruse, to assert the least. This is the reason the electorate must collectively be very proactive come 2023 rather than being reactive as it’s currently the case.
