President Bola Ahmed Tinubu has revealed that the botched population census will still be conducted in Nigeria.
He assured the National Population Commission (NPC) that the Federal Government will give its full support for the conduct of the census at a date to be announced.
It may be recalled that in April 2023, under the administration for former President Muhammadu Buhari, the census was postponed indefinitely.
The President spoke on Wednesday at the Presidential Villa in Abuja at the launch of the National Geospatial Data Repository, Digital CRVS System and inauguration of the National Coordination Committee for CRVS.
While calling for collaboration among Ministries, Departments and Agencies of government, Tinubu underscored the relevance of data to national growth.
He called on the census experts to deploy cutting-edge technology in gathering data on Nigeria’s population, saying the nation cannot afford to lag behind in efficient data sourcing.
Tinubu said Nigeria has a lot to be grateful for because it is not prone to natural disasters. Recall that Buhari’s government had released the sum of N200 billion to the Population Commission.
While a large chunk of the funds were deployed by the agency in the preliminary stages of the census collation, the Federal Government had to postpone the exercise owing to other exigencies.