Census: NPC to adopt digital method to avoid manipulation of figures

The Federal Commissioner of the National Population Commission (NPC) in charge of Kogi State, Professor Isah Habibat Jimoh, has said that the 2023 population and Housing census exercise may be devoid of manipulation because it would be centred on digital capturing, not manual.

The NPC dropped these hints at Lokoja over the weekend. He said the era where politicians and other interest groups would manipulate the exercise and record wrong results is over.

Tinubu finally unveils Kashim Shettima as running mate

Tinubu’s placeholder running mate resigns

Professor Jimoh pointed out that the 2023 census exercise will be different, saying, once an individual is captured by the machine, it goes directly to their centre cyber at the headquarters and there is no way anybody can change the information as recorded.

He added that the Commission is determined to successfully conduct the trial Census in their quest to “deliver a credible, reliable, acceptable and verifiable census to the nation“.

Explaining further, Professor Jimoh stated that the Commission has introduced new technologies such as Census PAD and CSP to ensure that the upcoming trial census exercise serves as a good rehearsal that will make the 2023 population and Housing Census credible, reliable and acceptable.

“To ensure that the trial Census does not lose focus in view of predetermined objectives and processes, Monitoring and Evaluation instruments have been developed to assess the extent to which objectives are being met or not, and whether the processes are being adhered to or not”, he stressed.

The NPC Boss noted that all loopholes in the previous census exercise have been tackled by the Commission, hence the forthcoming coming population and Housing census exercise will be different.

While he stressed that the staff of the commission have been adequately motivated to that effect, he said, that will make them minimise being corrupted by host people, community and politicians.