The National Population and Housing Commission of Nigeria has announced its plans to conduct a nationwide census next year in 2023. As part of its efforts toward meeting that goal, the body has also stated that it will launch a pilot census in June 2022.
Mr. Isa Kwarra, the Chairman of the NPC, made this announcement during a five-day workshop held in Nasarawa state to design legal frameworks and outlines for the digital application of the census. The Chairman also said that the planned 2023 national census was designed to produce data that was user-friendly, accurate, and reliable and described the census as a national event that every citizen of the country must make themselves available for.
He explained that the Commission was drawing on the experiences of the two censuses held before amongst a host of other factors to form their Census Strategy and Implementation Plan. Mr. Kwarra disclosed that so far, the body had successfully demarcated 772 Local Government Areas out of the 774 total in the country, save for Abadam in Borno State and Birnin Gwari in Kaduna state due to security concerns. But he also stressed that alternative solutions had been launched to bring these two areas into the fold before the census count began.
