JUST-IN: Nigeria Yet To Fix Date For Population Census

• Nine of the Commissioners were re-appointed and sworn-in for the second term while eight others freshly appointed were also sworn-in.
• The oath taking process of the commissioners were conducted in three batches of six, six and five.

No new date has been set for the conduct of the housing and population census, according to National Population Commission (NPC) head Nasir Kwarra.

The postponement of the population census was agreed by former President Muhammadu Buhari in April of 2023.

The dates of the exercise were set for May 3, 2023, to May 5, 2023. Nigeria didn’t conduct a census until 2006.

The NPC had stated that the exercise was rescheduled with the intention of President Bola Tinubu’s new administration fully participating in it.

In July 2023, the NPC chairman, after meeting with Tinubu said the president would announce new dates for the census.

He noted that the delay in the conduct of the census would incur more expenses than the N200 billion earlier earmarked for the exercise.

Addressing State House correspondents on Wednesday at the end of the swearing-in of 17 NPC commissioners at the presidential villa, Kwarra said the commission had made recommendations to the president on the new date for the conduct of the census.

“No date has been approved for us yet but we have made recommendations to Mr President and we are awaiting his approval,” he said.

Kwarra said the oath-taking by the commissioners marked a critical step in assisting the commission to carry on with the preparation for the conduct of the census.

“Today, we witnessed the swearing-in of 17 commissioners. Last two weeks, we had one from Lagos state. We still have three more outstanding to make the full commission,” he said.

“So we would like to seize the opportunity to thank Mr. President for this appointment and for making sure that there’s no vacuum created in the commission.

“It actually positions us very well in the preparation for the census. You know it’s a national thing, so we have to be in every state of the federation, preparing for the census.

“If we don’t have a commissioner from that state, the pace for the preparation for the census will slow down because the director in the state alone cannot handle it.”