Census questionnaire won’t ask for religion, ethnicity – NPC

The National Population Commission (NPC) has denied that the questionnaire to be used for the forthcoming census will ask participants to identify their religion or ethnicity.

The commission, in a statement issued yesterday by its Director of Public Affairs, Dr Isiaka Yahaya, faulted a viral post that stated that Muslims would be told to identify their sect.

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It said the claim was fabricated and deliberately timed to sow disaffection among the major religious groups in the country.

“A fact check on the origin of the purported message shows that it was first circulated in Ghana during its last population census exercise. The circulation of the message a few days into the conduct of the current trial census fieldwork nationwide is deliberately timed to sow disaffection among the major religious groups in the country.”

Yahaya, however, said the 2023 Census and the ongoing trial census like the previous ones in 1991 and 2006 won’t have questions on religion and ethnicity.

He, therefore, urged Nigerians to disregard the fake and misleading message and pleaded for cooperation with enumerators to ensure a successful trial census exercise in the quest to deliver a credible, reliable and acceptable census.

Meanwhile, the Commissioner representing Ekiti State at the NPC, Ayodeji Ajayi, has said the conduct of the census would be paperless to avoid double registration as enumerators would be given electronic pads in their area of coverage to register every citizen.

He called on the people of the state to cooperate with the NPC staff to be able to achieve the desired results for the country to get correct data for the government to work with.