Federal Commissioner of the National Population Commission (NPC) in charge of Niger State, Muhammad Dattijo Usman has said that communities and local government areas prone to bandits attacks will not be used for the planned trial census in the state.
The commissioner spoke yesterday in Minna at a press conference as part of the activities preparatory to the trial census.
He said that a total of 7, 718 enumeration areas have been selected for the exercise, adding that the selection of the enumeration areas was done carefully taking into consideration the security challenges.
Consequently, he said the selected local government areas were Edati, Katcha and Mokwa from Niger South, Bosso, Gurara and Tafa from Niger East and in Niger North, Agwara, Borgu and Wushishi were selected for the trial census.
He disclosed that even as bandits’ prone communities and local government areas will not be used for the exercise, the commission made adequate arrangements with security agencies to ensure an effective security coverage.
The commissioner disclosed that the selection of the coverage areas has been scientifically and purposively carried out to achieve the objectives of the trial census.
He disclosed that herders, inmates and those in the hospital would not be left out during the exercise.
He said that the local vigilantes in the selected areas for the trial census would be engaged to provide security for both enumerators and the people.
He explained that the trial census was to assess the quality and usefulness of the enumeration area maps that had been created and determine demographic and geographical changes between 2016 and 2018. He said that hackers had tried several times to tamper with the agency’s website, adding that adequate measures had been taken to deal with such issue.
