NPC seeks support of UNILORIN radio on census sensitisation

Mr Razak Gidado, Federal Commissioner, National Population Commission (NPC) in Kwara, has appealed to the University of Ilorin to use its FM radio station to create awareness on the next census.

Gidado, who made the plea at a news conference on Wednesday in Ilorin, said that citizens needed to be sensitised to get ready for the coming population census in the country.

He appealed to the institution to use its broadcast station to ensure that local communities were aware of the exercise.

Gidado said that the census programme was currently at the planning stage and the commission was putting everything in place to ensure its success.

“Everything we are doing now is the foundation because it is one thing to count, but another for the people and the government to accept the population figures presented later.

”We are now on enumeration of area demarcation exercises and in Kwara, we have cleared 12 local government areas and are now working on Asa and Offa,” he said.

The NPC commissioner noted that Gov. Abdulrahman Abdulrasak was particularly interested in updating the Kwara census and had been very supportive of the programme.

Gidado said that the commission and the state government had been able to reclaim Kwara’s land from a neighbouring country that had earlier encroached on it.

He said NPC was taking steps to curtail the influence of corruption on the accuracy of the proposed census figures.

Gidado added that the commission would employ digitisation in counting and documentation to minimise corruption in the census process.