Senate Urges FG To Conduct National Census In 2018

The Senate has called on the Federal Government to conduct housing and population census in 2018. It also urged the government to provide adequate funding for the exercise.

The house gave the urge after unanimous agreement on a motion raised by during plenary on Tuesday.

Sen. Suleiman Hunkuyi raised this in a motion titled “A call for The Federal Government to Expedite Action on the Planned 2018 National Census”. He reminded the government of constitutional provision 10-year provision for the exercise for conduct of census. Census was supposed to be held this year since the last one was in 2006.

He lamented poor release of funds to the National Population Commission (NPoPC) as a major setbacks to conduct of the exercise.

“It is only pertinent that subsequent population census should be carried out within an adequate timing and an objective of conducting an acceptable exercise.

“Secretary to Government of the Federation (SGF), NPoPC, Ministry of Budget and National Planning and other supervising agencies must make adequate provision in 2017 budget as critical prerequisite to achieving 2017/2018 population census,” he said.

Other lawmakers who contributed supported the motion. Sen. John Enoh stressed the need for relevant government agencies to include the total cost of conducting the census in the 2017 budget. He urged the Federal Government should adhere to the United Nations provision that censuses should be conducted every 10 years.

Sen. Emmanuel Bwacha, said that there was need to keep records of births, deaths and the entire population of the country.

“If they tell us the number of people that have been killed in the North-East, some of us will faint. It is important for us to support this motion and ensure that funds are released for the conduct of the national population census and call on President Buhari to make a proclamation.’’

Sen. Ajayi Boroffice, observed that there was no reason why money should not be made available to the population commission to conduct census.

“The huge sum of money we will use in getting data from abroad is expensive. Let us channel that money into NPoPC so that they can conduct the census,”

Senate Wants Adequate Funding, Quality Census

Deputy President of the Senate, Ike Ekweremadu, warned the population commission not to conduct a national census that would become an issue for deliberation. He said that every Nigerian must be counted and that information technology should be deployed in order to produce acceptable results.

“I want to thank the sponsor of the motion; as we approach the next census, we must take advantage of the development in technology and make the results of the exercise acceptable.

“All the previous exercises have been disputed. We want this exercise to count; every Nigerian must be counted and no one should be counted twice. “If we do this, we will be able to plan.”