December 27, (THEWILL) –Â The National Population Commission says it will participate in this year’s Calabar Carnival celebrations.
The Commissioner, representing Cross River State in the Commission, Navy Captain Charles Ogwa (Rtd), disclosed this in Calabar.
He said the commission wants to take advantage of the viewership of the carnival to showcase its activities and reach out to people across the country.
“Because of the massive viewership of the carnival, the NPC decided to participate in the Calabar Carnival 2022 to showcase the activities of the commission and its preparedness for the 2023 census exercise.
“We will be fully involved in the street party, but not as a participating band.
“The main objective is to reach people across the country strategically”, he said.
He added that in preparation for next year’s census, so many activities have been concluded including a pre-test, Enumeration Area Demarcation, compendium of localities and also the commission is in the process of recruiting Adhoc personnel, ahead of the exercise.
Also speaking, the Chairman of the NPC, Nasim Isa Kwarra, said the commission’s policy is to get the people involved and they want to seize every opportunity to reach out to people.
The Chairman, who was represented by Eyitayo Oyetunji, the Chairman of the Public Affairs Committee of the commission, added that there is no political undertone behind next year’s census and that all data generated will be used for national planning.
In his words, “This census, though local, has international ramifications because businesses, international agencies are interested in the data that will be generated and that the main purpose of the exercise is to generate data for national planning.
“Next year’s census will be the first that has a geographic definition and the ICT application that will be deployed are developed 100% locally by the commission”, he said.
He explained that everyone that will be enumerated has to belong to a household and all houses in the various villages and wards across the country have been captured.
About ten national commissioners from the commission and other officials are already in the state for the carnival.
THEWILL Correspondent, Aniekan Bassey has over six years experience that spans across several fields in print journalism including development communication, sexual reproductive and health rights issues, crime, climate change, social justice, business and human interest stories.
