2023 National Census: 1m Nigerians Will Be Recruited For Exercise – Says NPC

The National Population Commission (NPC) on Monday maintained that the 2023 national census would be done digitally, Naija News reports.

The commission said no fewer than one million citizens would be recruited for the conduct of the exercise to avoid irregularities and foster accurate documentation.

The commission assured that a reliable technological innovation will be deployed for the conduct of the exercise to prevent politicians and interested elites from hijacking or manipulating the process.

The Commissioner representing Ekiti State at the NPC, Deji Ajayi confirmed this in Ado-Ekiti.

Ajayi who spoke during a press conference in Ado-Ekiti ahead of the trial census to be conducted in Ekiti in preparation for the next year’s main exercise noted that nine towns across nine local government areas, selected out of the 16 councils in the state, have been delineated into Enumerated Areas, EAs, to ease the trial census.

The councils according to him include Ado, Emure, Iro, Ijero, Ikole, Iworoko, Ise, Ikun and Omuo Ekiti.

Ajayi said: “This is the first time we will be doing a paperless census, everything will be digital to check corruption and bring about accurate data that can help national development.

“Census is a massive operation that will engage one million personnel and managing such a huge workforce manually will raise huge logistical and documentation challenges.”

He stressed that the government will also use such statistics to plan for our youths, students, and the health needs of Nigerians.

“They will also know the number of gerontocrats, who should be catered for,” he said.

Assuring that the exercise would be difficult to manipulate, the NPC boss said, “Technology is open to manipulation, but NPC has gone a step higher by having an updated technological innovation that can prevent multiple registrations.

“The biometric technology will capture your face and fingerprints and goes to the server and any similar information supplied will be noticed and expunged from the data immediately.”