2023 Census: Misplaced Priority 

The current steps by the National Population Commission (NPC) toward organising a census for the country next year April is untimely and inappropriate, being so close to the next general election; and at a time of very significant security problems bedevilling virtually the whole country. These situations will definitely impact the census’ result adversely. Even by its acknowledgement, the NPC’s pre-census test being performed in some areas of the country are being stymied by overwhelming safety issues in some states.
Sadly, the NPC disdained the well-intentioned advice of the House of Representatives that the project should be put off because of the unstable circumstances in the country. The horrendous security condition is elevating concerns of accurate count. The Federal Government should not venture a wild goose chase. Census is a massive endeavour that requires a long time of organisation and development.
The truth, however, is that insecurity in the country is far more horrible than the image projected by the NPC. And given also the deplorable economic condition of the nation, it is time the commission explored other means outside census to execute its responsibility of extrapolating Nigeria’s population to intensify its planning and growth.
There is no part of the country that is safe. The widespread killings, abductions, and banditry across the nation will put enormous pressure on safety at every juncture of the census activity. The alternative is to employ modern technology and digital databases to subjugate the impediments, incorporating all the data from formal and informal sources to make a reasonable prognostication.
The manual procedure being adopted by the NPC is becoming anachronistic, error-ridden and vulnerable to manipulation. It should give way to new technologies for enumeration and data collection. According to a recent survey by the United Nations, more than 30 countries or areas are providing an option for Internet-based self-enumeration given that “new technologies contribute to improving the completeness, timeliness and quality of census results.” That is the way forward.
Many countries have espoused modern technologies such as mobile devices, geospatial information systems and the Internet in a census operation. For example, the United Kingdom conducted a census of all its constituent units in 2011. It was the first UK census undertaken completely online. The United States turned to aerial imagery and other technologies to mitigate the need to send workers door to door and limit temporary hires. Nigeria should work towards adopting such new methods.
The government should not set innocent citizens in harm’s way for conducting a headcount. Consequently, President Muhammadu Buhari should not submit to scare tactics from the commission to authorise or discharge funds for the census. Already, the NPC management is ruing the endorsement and even anticipating that if the money required for the activity from the government is inadequate, it would get reasonable appropriation from global backers.
Clearly, the quandary at hand is a very auspicious prescription for a failure of any headcount at this moment, which is better circumvented than added to the many miseries that had depicted census in this country. All the earlier censuses were contentious, and it does not make any sense to carry out a census just for it when all the indicators demonstrate apparent unfavourable aftermath.
Incidentally, Nigeria has had a variegated history with the conduct of the census exercise even before its Independence in 1960. It had its maiden census in 1911 in the colonial epoch, though it was confined to a tiny portion of what became Nigeria. However, it yet organised its first national census in 1921. This was accentuated by scanty staffing and boycotts by the public, who saw it as a harbinger of higher taxes. Successive headcounts were characterised by a similar antagonistic norm.
Another enumeration was due in 2016 after the last exercise in 2006, but the country has been unable to proceed with it. The 2006 exercise rolled in a hotly excoriated and ambiguous figure of 140 million, which became a subject of litigation. For instance, the results indicated that Kano in the North was Nigeria’s most populous state with 9.4 million, followed by Lagos’ 9.0 million in the South. Also, Northern states accounted for 75 million people, while those in the South were home to 65 million. Census and national elections have had an alienating outcome on the country for decades.
Why is the NPC bent on having a census despite the odds? Is the commission out to do a good job, or just to spend the huge money being budgeted for the project? No doubt, a valid census is crucial for planning and development objectives for the country. But it should be executed properly. The census had been put off twice in 2016 and 2018 following several controversial factors that have still not abated but intensified instead and worsened by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Though, the place of precise and reliable data cannot be overemphasised since its absence will spell doom for a nation’s development; however, it is inconceivable that any serious-minded government should ever consider human population enumeration amidst an atmosphere of unprecedented insecurity, mistrust, unrestrained corruption, and immanent economic woes. It would be like a similar exercise conducted in 1974 which the succeeding Murtala Muhammed military junta instantly jettisoned on the assumption of office in 1975.
We think that the Federal Government should put aside the idea of a census for the next government, which should tackle insecurity first before the census. A country that is facing existential challenges cannot have as one of its priorities the conduct of a national census. The current administration should discontinue what will aggregate to misadventure and waste of scarce national resources.
What should disconcert the Buhari regime is restoring the credence of a large section of citizens in the Nigerian project, resuscitate peace in areas held by criminal elements and douse tension in the country to promote favourable buy-in and participation. A national census now is necessarily not a preference, presuming that its conduct is feasible.