Federal Commissioner representing Edo state at the National Population Commission, NPC, Dr. Tony Aiyejina has said that the rescheduling of the 2023 census was occasioned by many extraneous factors other than a deliberate postponement by the commission.
Dr. Aiyejina who stated this in Benin city while addressing participants at the state’s breakfast meeting with media executives, said the commission was fully ready for the conduct of the census before it was rescheduled.
Dr.Aiyejina said “Pursuant to its constitutional mandate of conducting censuses for the country, and having obtained the approval of Former President Muhammad Buhari GCFR, to conduct a Population and Housing Census (PHC) for Nigeria, the National Population Commission (NPC), began preparatory activities for the census. The Commission as a body took the bold and unprecedented decision to conduct a digital census for the country.
” The first major preparatory activity was Enumeration Area Demarcation (EAD),which is the delineation of the country into units, where enumerators will work during the actual census. The EAD is the strategic architectural frame and foundation for the census and the 18 LGAs in Edo State have been successfully demarcated.
“The Commission has also conducted the 1st and 2nd Pretest, as well as the Trial Census, which was a dress rehearsal for the census proper meant to test the instruments and methodology for the Census. Therefore, the Commission created a recruitment portal for all categories of census adhoc
officials to apply online for recruitment.
“The training of census officials has already been done, except for Enumerators and Supervisors.
” All nonsensitive census materials including training manuals have been distributed to all the LGAs in Edo State. Sensitive materials for the census including Persona”Dr. Aiyejina stated.
