The National Population Commission (NPC) has disclosed that a total of one million Nigerians will be recruited by the federal government for the conduct of the 2023 national census
So as to avoid irregularities and foster accurate documentation.
The commission assured Nigerians 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 during a press conference in Ado-Ekiti on Monday, ahead of the trial census to be conducted in Ekiti preparatory to next year’s main census.
Ajayi 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.”
