The federal government has said it is hoping to hold a national census by April 2023 after the general election.
This was made known by the director-general of the National Population Commission (NPC), Nasir Kwarra, on Thursday immediately after the council of state meeting, which was presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari.
Kwarra said the NPC is determined to perform a pilot census in June 2022 after political party primaries.
He affirmed that the commission will deploy high technology in conducting the national census.
According to the NPC boss, he said through census, data is generated for planning and the data currently being used are “mere projections and obsolete”.
Explaining, he said, “It is very crucial because I have highlighted that the census is a very important exercise for the nation, because, through 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”.
“If you are in the private sector and 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, estimations, and are sort of obsolete. We need the actual census data to use for our planning.”
In December 2020, NPC had said a total of 206 million people are living in Nigeria — an accumulation of eight million people in two years.
Also in 2018, the commission confirmed that the country’s population was 198 million.
The country’s national census was last conducted in 2006.
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