The leadership of National Population Commission NPC under Hon Nasir Isa Kwarra and his Commissioners are not leaving any stone unturned towards ensuring the success of the forthcoming 2023 population and housing census, after the ten years statutory period that was due for another exercise.
Since assumption of duty in 2020 at the Commission, two years ago, Kwarra had guided jealousy the mandate to conduct a new digital population and housing census that will not only be acceptable to Nigerians, but the international communities.
Aside repositioning the moribund agency to deliver on its mandate through major reforms that boosted the morale of staffers into delivering on their statutory obligations, the new commission had provided a modern and modest avenue to transmit census reports and results in the forthcoming exercise through, synergy, collaboration, sensitization, awareness, talkshops, workshops and symposiums.
With the huge digital experience and resume of it’s staffers, the commission set the ball rolling for the first digital population and housing census away from the continuous and previous speculative data being peddle for more than half a decade, that was no longer feasible to the political , economic and social development of Nigeria.
Having exposed them to the modest skill, the task of achieving the forthcoming census slated for march 2023 may not be realistic, considering the greater roles , the media and other stakeholders are expected to play with a view to achieving an incontrovertible headcount in the country.
Kwarra and his team has not left any stone unturned towards carrying along the media community as one the critical stakeholders, but partners in progress towards achieving a new brand of census that will the bane of a modern Nigeria.
With an inaccurate population figure, Nigeria as the giant of Africa had lost its prestigious roles in the comity of nations, as well as it’s role model template for other developing countries across the African continent.
The current leadership of NPC apart from maintaining a robust media engagements with all medium of communication consisting of the conventional/ traditional and online medium went out to organize an 3 day orientation seminar for journalists in the country and across the geopolitical zones to acquaint them of more knowledge of reportage of population news, as the country prepares towards the next year’s census.
The three day program held between 9-13 May , 2022 was declared opened by the Chairman of National Population Commission NPC, Alhaji Nasir Isa Kwarra in Abuja were he appealed to journalists to extend supports to ensure the success of the 2023 population and housing census.
Hon Kwarra underscores the significance of the media as the fourth estate of the realm to the overall development of the country, stating the obvious their roles cannot be overemphasized.
He lauded their roles that led to the success of the enumeration, pretest census and the trial census exercise, preparatory to the main census program for next year.
The National Population Commission NPC did not stop at that, as it also organised a grand luncheon for media executives few months after the capacity building workshop held for journalists on Thursday, the 27th October, 2022, to also solicit more supports from the media industry as Nigeria prepares for the 2023 population and housing census.
The luncheon for the top echelon in the media industry was another engagement and opportunity to solicit continuous supports of the media world to take Nigeria from the archaic computation and frequent reference to the outdated population figure.
The quest for collaboration with the media by NPC was an indication of a selfless and patriotic stance of the current leadership towards arriving at more accurate and reliable figure of Nigeria’s population.
Two years down the line, the new NPC was already conscious of the futility of the current figure, and the desire to take the country to another level by placing it among the comity of nations, through a well articulated population and housing census figure.
With the multiplier effects on the survival of the country with a precarious figure, all hands must b on deck to ensure the success of the 2023 exercise, against the naysayers whose insistence on the extension of the headcount exercise was more or less unpatriotic and ill motivated.
With an enabling environment, cooperation and collaboration, it is high time the media industry extends their olive branch towards the success of the forthcoming population and housing census in Nigeria.
YUSUF writes from Abuja and can be reached on [email protected].
