OWERRI — THE National Population Commission (NPC) requires the services of 800,000 staff and ad-hoc workers to properly execute next year’s national census, NPC chairman, Chief Samu’ila Makama has said. In an interview in Owerri weekend, he also revealed that the commission had engaged the services of no fewer than 9,000 persons to complete the field work of the demarcation of the outstanding 730 local government areas of the country.
"A total of 44 local government areas have been fully demarcated in the country. The fair drawing and scanning of the enumeration area sketches is in progress with a view to geo-referencing the completed enumeration areas. In order to complete the demarcation of the outstanding 730 local government areas in seven months, about 9,000 staff and ad-hoc staff have been engaged to carry out the field work", the NPC boss revealed.
While saying that the commission was fully aware that negative attitudes, misinformation and deep seated prejudices had been the bane of past censuses, Chief Makama also said that NPC has designed what he termed "an elaborate programme of public enlightenment" for next year’s census."
President Olusegun Obasanjo flagged off the campaign April 20, 2004 and also inaugurated the National Census Publicity Committee. The intention is to reach out to all Nigerians and forge a new tradition of positive thinking and acceptance of the usefulness of population census in our national planning programmes", Makama said. He warned that double or multiple enumerations of persons are not only offences under the Nigerian law but it also undermines the integrity of the census data."
Towards this end, the commission will adopt de-facto method of enumeration. This means that only those physically seen by the enumerators will be counted. This decision was based on the need to ensure accuracy of the census data and prevent double or multiple enumerations of persons, if people were to be counted in absentia", he explained. Chief Makama also said that "it is an offence for people to travel to their home states or any other state where they are not normally resident for the purpose of enumeration", stressing that "such census migration distorts the quality of the data as it would not be a true reflection of the people and their living conditions".
Answering another question, the NPC chairman insisted that the 2005 census "is not going to be a political census and it will not be conducted on terms dictated by the political class", adding that next year’s census is a census of the people and for the people.
"We must not allow the 2005 census to be hijacked by greedy and over-ambitious politicians for short term political gains. The Nigerian people must insist on the conduct of a 2005 census in a way that it responds to their collective and genuine desire for sustainable development", Chief Makama pleaded.
