Ahead of the national population and housing census coming up in April, the Emir of Gombe, Alhaji Abubakar Shehu-Abubakar III, has expressed the commitment of traditional institution to support a smooth and transparent digital headcount.
Shehu-Abubakar, who doubles as Chairman Gombe State Council of Emirs and Chiefs,also warned against manipulation of statistics for whatever gains.
The monarch spoke during the inauguration of members of the Gombe State Census Publicity Committee.
The monarch stressed that for development to happen in the country statistics were important.
Shehu-Abubakar, who was represented by Sani Jauro, said, “If you don’t know the number you are planning for, you are planning to fail; all of us are aware of this. Information on the number of the various persons, classes you have in a society is important. You need to know that in order to be able to plan properly. Census took place 17 years ago; that is why we are having a lot of problems.
“I’m very happy that the National Population Commission is taking the bull by the horns to do digital census. The previous manual census was married by a lot of infractions; if there were infractions with the purpose of profiteering in whatever way, then the whole process is a failure.”
Also speaking, Commissioner for Information and Culture, Meshack Lauco, who was represented by Ibrahim Sulaiman, said accurate figures were imperative to development.
The Federal Commissioner of NPC, Mohammed Danburam, said the vision was not only to conduct accurate, reliable and acceptable census data, “but also an inclusive and user-friendly data that would be used by all segments of the society for development planning and critical programme interventions.”
