Tinubu to set a new date for the count – NPC

President Bola Tinubu will set a new date for the national population and housing census, the chairman has said National Population Commission (NPC)said Nasir Quara.

Mr Kwarra stated this while addressing journalists after a meeting on Thursday between the commission and the President.

The NPC postponed the count indefinitely due to the last general elections held in March and April.

Mr Kwarra said the committee had submitted its report to Mr Tinubu, adding that the president was expected to study and decide when the exercise would take place.

“We have fully briefed him on the level of our preparedness, on the results we anticipate and I would like to say that Mr. President has graciously agreed to support the commission in conducting the census and our preparatory activities, although we are not stuck at all, he gave us the courage and impetus to improve our training.

“So we will continue our preparations and eventually we will hear from him the date on which the census will take place because we have sent him a request which he will study before coming back to us. But as far as the assurance of support is concerned, he has given it to us and we thank him immensely for also realizing the importance of data for national planning and development purposes,” he said.

On the concern expressed by the NPC Commissioner in Ekiti State that all the money allocated to the commission (N100 billion out of N200 billion) may go to waste if the exercise is not conducted as soon as possible, Mr. Kwarra said: “ Yes, it is true that we may have to incur additional costs if we stay much longer than necessary. But in this situation, we have given full information to the President, including the significance if there is any further delay in conducting the census. So we are very careful and Mr. President is very lenient to be able to accommodate our requests.”

On whether the commission would make more demands after the time had expired, he said: “As for the expenditure of N200 billion, we have without doubt incurred that expenditure. Conducting a digital census is not cheap and keep in mind, it is like a basic census.

“Subsequent censuses will not be as expensive because we have created a framework that we can only update.” And moving forward as ICT improves, we will use more methodologies that will save us money.

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“What we are doing now is Computer Assisted Personal Interviews (CAPI) which visit every household in the country to count. When there is an improvement in telecommunications, we hope we can do telephony; we can make the web where we can throw out questionnaires and people will respond without having to send staff to the field.

“This is looking at the next census outside of what we plan to do. And this expenditure, as I said before, starts from 2014 to where we are now, we will still seek more money, we will be able to complete the census and once this census is done, Nigeria will change completely.

“The completion of the census and the resources we have acquired in the process of conducting the census will pay more than that N200 billion you are talking about and the government will even have some surplus in the coffers by the time we finish conducting the census”.

Asked to explain how the money is an investment since the commission is not a revenue generating agency, Mr Kwarra said: “It is an investment because in the process of preparing for the census, we are able to generate geospatial data that will bring to the government’s income. This is not just a data scan. Geospatial data will bring money to the government.”