The National Population Commission (NPC) is holding a two-day workshop for stakeholders in Nigeria's South Eastern State of Ebonyi, on the compendium of localities for the population and housing census scheduled to be conducted in April 2023.
The census body is making every necessary arrangements to ensure the success of the project two years after an earlier plan to conduct the exercise in 2021 was shelved due to what the government said was overwhelming security breaches in many parts of the country.
The NPC's Federal Commissioner representing Ebonyi State, Darlington Okereke explained to the audience that the compendium of localities in a census entails finalizing and presenting to the grassroots, the final list of localities for a census exercise.
Okereke pointed out that for the 2023 population and housing census, the data on all localities in the State have already been collected by the Commission through its field workers during the Enumeration Area Demarcation exercise.
He assures the participants that the data will be presented and released to the 13 Local Government Areas stakeholders at the workshop.
The last census exercise in Nigeria was conducted in 2006 and the country's population was put at 140.43 million with 71.3 million as males and 69.0 million females, but before then, a headcount was held all over Nigeria from 27th November to 2nd December, 1991, though the figures were disputed.
The 2023 national population and housing census exercise which will be the 5th since the country's independence in 1960, has over N190 billion approved budget and is expected to be the most detailed and scientific enumeration of Nigeria's population.
