Population census: Why Nigeria is three years behind schedule

Lack of strong legal backing, paucity of funds and politics are the main reasons why Nigeria is three years behind the schedule for population and housing census. The country conducted its last population census in 2006 and globally, every country is expected to hold census every 10 years. The 2006 population and housing census put […]

Lack of strong legal backing, paucity of funds and politics are the main reasons why Nigeria is three years behind the schedule for population and housing census.

The country conducted its last population census in 2006 and globally, every country is expected to hold census every 10 years. The 2006 population and housing census put Nigeria’s total population at 140 million and since then, estimates had been used to update the country’s growing population every year.

In 2019, the National Population Commission (NPC) estimated that the country’s total population had risen to 200.96 million; a figure still arrived at through estimates.

Speaking recently in Abuja at the start of another phase of Enumeration Area Demarcation (EAD) in readiness for the census, the Acting Chairman of the Commission, Alhaji Hassan Bashir, said there is a limit beyond which estimates as opposed to raw data, cease to be useful indices in effective planning and execution of national development programmes.

Bashir’s comment is indicative that Nigeria is nearing the danger zone as a nation blindly planning its development on estimates instead of raw data. “No time is more auspicious than now that the General Elections are over to draw the nation’s attention and energy to the imperatives of a national census that will provide the country with much needed current data to aid effective planning in the country,” he said.

The United Nations recommends that population censuses be taken at least every 10 years and many countries have adopted it and even gone ahead to enshrine the requirement in law.

The Commission made efforts to conduct the census in 2018 but it was politicised, with some politicians arguing that a population headcount should not be held a year to a national election.

In Nigeria, the Act establishing the National Population Commission is silent on periodic conduct of censuses, a loophole that has provided the basis for the Federal Government to postpone it at will.

To hold a population census, the president must make a proclamation on it before the Commission can go ahead with it, including fixing the relevant dates.

Such presidential proclamation also opens ways for foreign donors to support the process to augment the funds that the federal government would provide.

However, the Commission’s Director General, Ghaji Bello, believes there is a need for periodic conduct of the census to be included in the Act to make it mandatory to hold a census in Nigeria every 10 years just as it is compulsory to hold elections every four years.

Budgetary allocations to the Commission dipped considerably in line with the nation’s economic downturn, forcing the Commission to slow preparations for the census.

In the past two years, the Commission has been conduction Enumeration Area Demarcations in phases and it recently started another phase in March 2019 across the country.

The Acting Executive Chairman of the Commission said at the end of the ongoing EAD, the Commission would have demarcated enumeration areas in 135 LGAs while the remaining 639 LGAs will be covered subsequently.

The EAD is currently going on in Kogi, Kwara, Nasarawa, Niger, Plateau, Adamawa, Borno, Gombe, Taraba, Kaduna and Kano states. Other states include Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, Imo, Cross River, Delta, Edo, Rivers, Ogun, Ondo and Osun.

The Commission said at the end of this round of EAD, which will end on April 13, N3.5 billion would have been spent to demarcate 135 enumeration areas out of the N22.5 billion estimated to demarcate the entire country for the census.

The commission needs N220 billion to conduct the next population and housing census, but the DG recently said the amount was estimated as at 2018 and no longer realistic in view of currency value fluctuations over time.

He said, though the expected population and housing census is not covered in the 2019 budget, if the presidential proclamation is done, the exercise can be funded from the Service Wide Vote.