The National Population Commission has said it is ready to conduct a credible population census across the country, while describing the 2006 population census as controversial.
A Federal Commissioner of the NPC for Osun State, Mudashir Hussain, said this during the opening of the South-West zone’s training of trainers for trial census in Abeokuta.
While declaring the training open, Hussain said it would equip the commission’s staff members to avoid the mistakes of past census.
He said, “We are having this training as part of further preparations for a credible census. We have been putting lots of things in place before now to avoid a repetition of the failure of the last census. A census is conducted to aid development of the people.
“The 2006 census was controversial and up till today, no one can say the exact number of Nigerians. Almost a year ago, we started the Enumerated Area Demarcation. We have concluded it in 772 local government areas. We are left with two local government areas, and we will do that before the commencement of the census proper.
“We are going to have a trial census by the end of this month (June) to test all our strategy and technologies before the main census in 2023. We have visited all service chiefs and they have assured us of security support.”
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