The agency moreover guaranteed that the NPC had advanced a trustworthy technology innovation for the conduct of the exercise to stop politicians and other elites with vested interests from hijacking or influencing the procedure.
Emerging reports indicate that one million Nigerians will be hired by the Federal Government to participate in the 2023 National Census, according to the National Population Commission (NPC).
At a news conference Monday in Ado Ekiti announcing the trial census that will be conducted in Ekiti in advance of the main census procedure next year, Mr. Deji Ajayi, the Commissioner who represents Ekiti at the NPC, made this statement.
According to the former head of service for Ekiti State, nine towns in nine local governments had been chosen from the state’s 16 councils and divided into Enumerated Areas (EAs) to facilitate the trial census.
The trial census in Ekiti will be conducted in the following regions, according to the retired Permanent Secretary: 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.
It is in recognition of this fact that the NPC resolved that recruitment for the 2023 census will be done electronically. This trial census will provide opportunity to test the feasibility of e-recruitment.”
Reeling out the significance of census to nation-building, Ajayi said population statistics would be used by private organisations to plan for the recruitment of young Nigerians by knowing the number of the active population.
“The government will also use such statistics to plan for our youth, 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 will be difficult to manipulate, the NPC boss said: “Technology is open to manipulation, but NPC has gone a step higher by having an updated technology 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.
“This time, no person, who is not seen will register as a Nigerian. We have put everything in place to ensure that this exercise will neither be hijacked nor politicised.
“The commission has intensified preparatory activities deploying technological innovation on a massive scale to conduct a truly scientific census that will not only be accurate and reliable but also transparent to all Nigerians.”
“We have also brought in some eggheads from our universities and retired experts from the civil service to train our workers for better efficiency”, he stated
