As the controversy generated over the planned population census by President Muhammadu Buhari’s government rages on, Bimbola Salu-Hundeyin, a Federal Commissioner of the Commission has called for the criminalisation of census migration to tackle the menace. According to Salu-Hundeyin, the temporary relocation of people from their residences to their hometowns during a census is one of the major factors frustrating the exercise in Nigeria.
But most Nigerians seem not comfortable with the plan, urging the government to tackle rising insecurity in the country first.
Diocese of Sokoto, Matthew Kukah on Sunday said every aspect of life in Nigeria has been destroyed while corruption is enthroned.
In his Easter Message titled, ‘To mend a broken nation: The Easter metaphor,’ the cleric said the government of President Mohammadu Buhari has slid into hibernation mode.
Kukah said, “We need to start thinking of a Nigeria beyond banditry and kidnapping and the endless circles of violence that have engulfed our communities and nation. We cannot continue to pretend that there are no religious undertones to the violence in the name of God that has given our religions a bad name.
“The way out is for the state to enforce the secular status of the Nigerian state so as to give citizens the necessary freedoms from the shackles of semi-feudal confusion over the status of religion and the state in a plural Democracy. We must be ready to embrace modernity and work out how to preserve our religions and cultures without turning religion into a tool for tyranny, exclusion, and oppression… “
Also colonel Abubakar Dangiwa Umar(rtd), a former military Governor of Kaduna State, advised President Buhari to suspend the conduct of the proposed National Census slated for April 2023 and concentrate on security.
He said, in a statement last week Friday evening, that the report on the planned National Census was “shocking”,
“President Buhari should concentrate on finding a lasting solution to the disturbing security challenges across the country,” he said
“Nigeria is facing existential challenges epitomised by insecurity and a collapsing economy, embarking on a census would amount to a misadventure and waste of scarce resources,” he said.
Other stakeholders have spoken against the planned exercise if only the government was determined to make it credible and acceptable. But, the Federal Commissioner who spoke during an interview on Channels Television's Sunrise Daily program, while giving update on the commission's preparedness believes migration has become a bane that tends to question the credibility of the exercise.
“Another painful aspect why a census is almost not very accurate in Nigeria is census migration culture that we have, especially in Lagos State, and it hurts,” the NPC official stated during the breakfast show. “Because Nigerians believe that ‘the more we are in my village, the more allocation we get from the Federal Government’; so, they move from Lagos where their children school, (where) they work in the banks, (where) they live, and move back to their states. This is very wrong; I think it should be criminalised.” ALSO READ:Path To Acceptable Population Census, By Stakeholders Sixteen years since the exercise was last conducted, Nigeria is scheduled to hold another national census, following the approval of the National Council of State. The Council which met on Thursday last week agreed that the exercise should be conducted between March and April 2023. According to Salu-Hundeyin who served as NPC Chairman between 2019 and 2020, efforts are ongoing to conduct the exercise without any glitches and to ensure every citizen is counted. She briefed that the agency has divided the whole country into smaller units that can be captured by a pair of enumerators within a specific period. The NPC official, however, stressed the need for the independence of the NPC like the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and others, as well as for people to stay in their homes rather than travelling to their hometowns for the exercise. “Even though the National Population Commission is one of the agencies designed and designated by the Constitution to be independent, I do not think we are totally independent because if you go to other parts of the Constitution, it says that when we conduct the census, it must be subject to the approval of the Council of State,” she said. “We are appointed by the President; if what we do is subject to the Council of State, you understand what I am saying? Like INEC, when INEC conducts elections, you can go to court and if the court says it wasn’t proper, there is re-election. There is no provision for a recount of the census.”
