FG to employ 1m Nigerians for 2023 census – NPC

The National Population Commission (NPC), has revealed that the federal government will engage a total of one million Nigerian people for the 2023 National Census exercise.

The agency also gave an assurance of a reliable technological innovation for the conduct of the exercise.

The technological innovation was to prevent political actors and the elite from taking over or manipulating the system.

The Commissioner representing Ekiti in the commission, Mr. Deji Ajayi, made this revelation in Ado Ekiti, on Monday, at a press conference.

Ajayi said: “This is the first time we will be doing a paperless census, everything will be digital to check corruption and bring about accurate data that can help national development.

“Census is a massive operation that will engage one million personnel and managing such a huge workforce manually will raise huge logistical and documentation challenges.

“It is in recognition of this fact that the NPC resolved that recruitment for the 2023 census will be done electronically. This trial census will provide opportunity to test the feasibility of e-recruitment.”

“The government will also use such statistics to plan for our youth, students and the health needs of Nigerians. They will also know the number of gerontocrats, who should be catered for,” he said.

“The biometric technology will capture your face and fingerprints and goes to the server and any similar information supplied will be noticed and expunged from the data immediately.

“This time, no person, who is not seen will register as a Nigerian. We have put everything in place to ensure that this exercise will neither be hijacked nor politicised.

“The commission has intensified preparatory activities deploying technological innovation on a massive scale to conduct a truly scientific census that will not only be accurate and reliable but also transparent to all Nigerians.”

“We have also brought in some eggheads from our universities and retired experts from the civil service to train our workers for better efficiency”, he stated.