Laleye Dipo in Minna
Despite the postponement of the national population and housing census, the National Population Commission (NPC) has assured Nigerians that it would conduct an acceptable and credible exercise anytime it is held.
The Federal Commissioner in Niger State, Alhaji Dattijo Usman, who stated this while addressing a news conference in Minna, yesterday, said everything had already been put in place to ensure hitch free exercise before the suspension of the head count
“We will deliver an acceptable census; it will be different from other census and we have established a framework that will work perfectly,” Usman declared.
Part of the strategy to be adopted to ensure the exercise would be acceptable, he said was the decision to expunge anything that has to do with religion and ethnicity from the questionnaire saying, “the questions do not include any aspects of religion or ethnicity. These two items if included will inflame the faggots of centrifugal forces, create unnecessary tension, cause needless controversy and effortlessly divert attention from the raison d’etre of census data meant for national planning and development.”
The Federal Commissioner said while the conduct of the census had been suspended, “the Commission is currently retooling re-kitting and re-strategising awaiting further necessary directives pertaining there to.”
Usman, restated that the next census would be fully digital, transformative, adding that, “it differs as well in nature and scope from the previous censuses as it will be Population and Housing Census.”
The Commissioner however declined to be drawn into the reason why the conduct of the census was suspended.
