2023 Census: How NPC spent N200bn on preparations

The National Population Commission (NPC) on Friday said that the commission had spent no less than N200 billion over a period of eight years in preparation for the national census slated to hold this year.

The NPC’s Director of Public Affairs, Isiaka Yahaya, said the insinuation that the sum was spent in the last few years was erroneous as the commission had been preparing for the census since 2014.

He stated this during a press conference in Abuja on Friday.

“Yes, it is true that N200 billion has been spent on preparations for the 2023 Census so far. However, this fund was not expended in the last few weeks, months or years but rather since 2014 when preparations for the 2023 Census actually began.

“Indeed, part of the N200 billion was expended before the coming of the present commission, which was inaugurated twice between 2018 and 2020 and even before the inception of the Buhari Administration,” he said.

Yahaya said the huge sum was spent on different preparatory processes to ensure the exercise comes out with credible and acceptable data.

He said chief among its spending was the demarcation of the country into enumeration areas for easy clustering and which has provided the country with data on the number of houses in the country.

Nigeria’s census which should have been held since 2016 following the guidelines of the United Nations had been delayed due to various reasons since it was last held in 2006.