Deputy speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon Benjamin Kalu has charged the newly inaugurated commissioners of the National Population Commission (NPC) to ensure that the next census will give the actual statistics of Nigeria‘s population.
Kalu who gave the charge at the inauguration dinner of the federal commissioner representing Abia State in the NPC Board, Emmanuel Eke over the weekend in Abuja, said knowing the figure was essential to economic planning and the spread of infrastructure across the country.
The deputy speaker in a statement by his chief press secretary, Levinus Nwabughiogu, said it was not right to continue to guess about the country‘s population each time the issue arises, stressing that it was time the narrative is changed for good.
He said, „The charge to you people as commissioners is to be honest, we don‘t know our number in Nigeria. We cannot keep claiming we are the giant of Africa when we don‘t have accurate statistics or our actual number as a nation. It‘s embarrassing. Each time they ask you of your population, you said about…When are we going to drop this „about“, that descriptive thing to our number?
„You people should make it exact. When we call Ogun State, you tell us the number. We call Abia, you tell us. Total number in the South East, you give us. Total in the South West, North West, South South, etc, you give us so that we can plan because economic planning without actual knowledge of the population is a waste of time because you might plan for a few and the infrastructure will be overused by the much you did not capture.
„So, the root of our economic planning is knowing our number and knowing the demography, so that when we want to do project allocation, the spread will be guided by the population. So, census is what you have to do as a service to this nation.“
Kalu also commended President Bola Tinubu for running an all-inclusive government, appointing the Igbo in coveted positions of authority despite receiving poor number of votes from the region in the last presidential election.
