The Federal Government has said that the national population census is scheduled to hold between March and April 2023.
Briefing State House Correspondents after the Council of State meeting, Governor Abubakar Badaru of Jigawa State said the census will take place after 16 years.
Governor Badaru said this was part of the resolutions reached at the Council of State meeting in Abuja on Thursday.
The meeting was chaired by President Muhammadu Buhari and was attended by former Heads of State – Abdusalami Abubakar, Goodluck Jonathan, and Yakubu Gowon.
Vice President Yemi Osinbajo; the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Boss Mustapha; National Security Adviser, Babagana Monguno and the Chief of Staff to the President, Prof. Ibrahim Gambari were also in attendance.
State Governors present at the meeting include Hope Uzodinma of Imo State; Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti State, Atiku Bagudu of Kebbi State, Bello Matawalle of Zamfara State, Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna state among others.
Meanwhile, former Minister of Aviation and chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Femi Fani-Kayode has tackled the Muhammadu Buhari-led government over rising cases of killings across the country.
Reacting to the recent killings of over 100 people in Plateau State and Benue State by bandit terrorists in a post on his Twitter handle on Thursday, Fani-Kayode stated that things appear to be getting worse under the Buhari administration.
He described the killings by bandit terrorists as disgraceful, indefensible and unacceptable.
According to the Deputy Coordinator of the Yahaya Bello Presidential Campaign, Nigerians endured the pain and shame in silence for too long, hoping and praying that the authorities will rise up to the occasion.
Fani-Kayode stated that the Buhari government has an obligation before God and the Nigerian people to do far more.
National Population Commission (NPC)
National Population Commission is a principal commission of Nigeria, responsible for producing data about the Nigerian people and economy. The commission is under the supervision of the Office of the Presidency, and its head is appointed by the President of Nigeria.
The National Population Commission (NPC) has said 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.
The chairman of the commission, Alhaji Nasir Isa Kwarra, disclosed this on Thursday after the Council of State meeting presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.
He said the pilot census would be conducted in June this year immediately after the political parties had completed their primary elections to produce candidates for 2023 general elections.
Speaking on the importance of the exercise, Isa Kwarra explained that the data obtained from census is used for policy making, planning and development by the three tiers of government and the private sector.
He said: “If you are a private sector, you’re 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.
“Because, the data we’ve been using are just projections, estimation, and are sort of obsolete, we need the actual census data to use for our planning.”
The announcement that the population and housing census will be held in April 2023 differed from the Federal Government’s earlier disclosure that the exercise will take place in 2022.
Truetells Nigeria reported that Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning Zainab Ahmed, had, at the public presentation and breakdown of the 2022 Appropriation Bill in October 2021, announced that the government will conduct a national population and housing census in 2022
The minister also disclosed that the sum of N178.09 billion had been budgeted for the population census exercise.
In the absence of reliable information on the number of people in the country, Nigerian authorities have been relying on estimates from Worldometer, an arm of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, to guage the country’s population.
At the moment, Nigeria’s population is estimated as 206 million people, according to details released by the National Population Commission (NPC) in 2020.
Truetells Nigeria had also reported that the 2006 national population census was mired in controversy with the outcome dividing the country along regional lines.
The result of the census was rejected by the South and endorsed by North.