Seventeen years after its last population census, the Federal Government of Nigeria on Thursday said it may carry out a national census that is designed to produce not only an accurate, reliable, and acceptable census after the next general elections scheduled to hold in February and March 2023.
The director-general of the Nigeria Population Commission (NPC), Nasir Isa-Kwara, made the disclosure at the end of the Council of State meeting, presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja. Isa-Kwara revealed that the pilot census will be conducted in June by the National Population Commission after political parties have held their primary elections.
The last census was held in August 2006 but the NPC has said it is targeting to carry out the next one in April 2023.
The commission also said it has successfully completed the Enumeration Area Demarcation (EAD) in the 772 LGAs out of the 774 LGAs in Nigeria as well as the 1st and 2nd Census Pretest in the selected Enumeration Areas in the 36 States of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory in preparation for the 2022 Census with the outcomes of these preparatory activities re-assuring that the Commission is on course in its mission to deliver a credible and reliable census.
The NPC boss said “through the census, we generate the data that we use for policymaking, for planning, for development, by the three tiers of government, and the private sector, they all need this.
Speaking further on the importance of the population census, Isa-Kwarra stressed that census figures will also benefit the private sector.
“If you are in the 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, and estimation and are sort of obsolete, we need the actual census data to use for our planning. “
Censuses are controversial in Nigeria because rival ethnic and religious groups have in the past tried to use them to assert their numerical superiority and claim a larger share of oil revenues and political representation.
The World Bank estimates Nigeria’s population will overtake that of the United States by 2050 to reach almost 400 million.