President Muhammadu Buhari has taken part in the first phase of Census 2023 trial exercise, and urged officials to justify the confidence of the government by returning accurate, verifiable and dependable data.
Receiving accreditation from the National Population Commission at the commencement of the exercise, President Buhari said he was delighted that the process had begun in earnest.
Chairman of the NPC team, Alhaji Nasir Kwarra explained the modalities and technicalities of the Population and Housing Census to the President.
President Buhari had been designated number one on the list, from Daura, Katsina, and his house was also the first.
He said field functionaries for the trial had completed training for the exercise, saying that the exercise would last until the end of this month, and cover a total of 7681 Enumeration Areas, EAs, in the 36 States and the FCT.
He explained that 6 Local Government Areas, LGAs, had been selected from the 6 selected states in the 6 geo-political zones of the country for full population enumeration while 45 EAs in 9 LGAs across 3 senatorial districts had been selected from each of the 30 states and the FCT for Enumeration.
According to him, the Trial Census fieldwork includes, building numbering and household listing from 13th to 15th of this month, validation of EA frame from 16th to 18th, person’s enumeration from 19th to 25th, and enumeration mop-up from 26th to 30th.
Alhaji Kwarra said the trial census exercise the NPC would, at the end the exercise, expect to take away lessons on its chosen methodology, work load, challenges of data collection in peculiar areas, and the education, as well as the adequacy of the preparation of enumerators.
