NPC to Nigerians: You don’t need to travel to your home state for the Census

National Population Commission, NPC, has advised Nigerians not to travel to their states of origin for the forthcoming census.

NPC said that citizens living away from their states of origin did not need to travel home for the exercise.

While stating that people would be enumerated at their places of residence, the Commission said it had put up measures to guard against all forms of malpractices ahead of the forthcoming population and housing census.

The spokesperson for the commission, Isiaka Yahaya, disclosed this in an interview with The PUNCH on Monday.

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Yahaya said, ”People should stay where they are, to be counted. They are not to move to their states of origin. It is totally against the essence of the census. You have to be counted where you reside because that’s where you enjoy the social facilities like education and health, among others.

“Apart from this, when the time comes for people to be provided with infrastructure and other things, you will not allow the planners to have accurate figures. People are not to move.”

On measures to check malpractices, the NPC spokesman said, “This is a de facto census. We are asking practical questions about those who are living, not those who are yet to be born. We have not trained our enumerator to count people who are not yet born. We have a system in place to guard against all the malpractices that we have envisaged.

“Also, people can only be counted in their houses. This is to discourage people from moving from one place to another after being counted. You can only be counted in one place. There’s nothing to lie about. When we get to your house, the enumerators will see whatever you say you have, and we are not asking for the owner of the house. Why will anybody lie?”

He noted that the commission had not finished the recruitment process for enumerators.