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The Chairman of the National Population Commission, NPC, Eze Duruiheoma, has said despite calls in some quarters for a postponement of the proposed 2018 census, the Commission will go ahead with scheduled plans.
TheNewsGuru.com reports that Duruiheoma was reacting to calls by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara to postpone the census after the 2019 election year.
Dogara noted that since the census can’t be achieved in 2017 (this year), there was no need conducting it a year to the general elections as politicians would take undue advantage of the window of opportunity made available by the census to maneuver figures for their selfish political gains.
In his words: “I won’t advise anyone to conduct a national census in 2018. I said it before that if we are not going to achieve it in 2017, then we should just forget it until after 2019. If you conduct a census just before the elections, there will be so much pressure, crisis and a lure for people to manipulate the figures for political reasons, such that the agency cannot even cope with.
“So, it is better for a fresh administration to conduct this exercise from the beginning of that administration when we do not have any pressure of elections in sight. Then we may have something that resembles reality, but I can bet on it that if the census is conducted in 2018, the outcome will be unreliable. Seriously speaking, because I know who we are and I know the kind of litigation, backlash and the pressure that come with this kind of exercise and we don’t need that now to be candid.”
However, Duruiheoma had while reacting to the speaker’s position said the commission will go ahead with its plans because the Federal Government has not called for the cancellation of the census.
Speaking in an interview with reporters in Abuja on Tuesday on the stand of the commission, Duruiheoma said: “The NPC is an agency of government. Whatever we say, whatever we do, we give it to government; government reacts and directs us. The Speaker (Dogara) is entitled to his views, any other person is also entitled to his or her views. That is where we are. We are supposed to be an umpire.
“We have not been asked not to go on with preparations, so we will continue to prepare. In any case, even if it is to be held in 2020 or 2021, there has to be preparations. I expect government to direct us.”
The NPC boss added, “If the census will take place in 2030, there has to be some preparations. Preparation is a regular thing. It is not an election. Even if it is an election, you have to prepare for it.”
TheNewsGuru.com reports that the Commission had proposed that conducting the census next year will cost the nation an estimated N272bn and this has attracted severe criticisms.