Sola POPOOLA
The National Population Commission (NPC) has hinted that all its processes were digitised inorder to obtain efficient and quality data for the 2023 Population and Housing Census .
This was made known during a One-day Capacity Building for select Journalists and members of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) Ekiti State Council.The participants are drawn from the Print, Electronic media as well, as the new media Federal and State Ministries of Information .
In his speech at the event the Federal Commissioner representing Ekiti State, at the Commission, Mr Ayodeji Ajayi, said the training was part of the activities of the organization to organised a hitch-free exercise, that will be widely accepted for the development of the country.
He explained that thev Population and Housing Census is slated to hold between March 29 and April 3, 2023 .
The Federal Commissioner explained that the capacity workshop would also improve the quantity and quality of media content on the 2023 population and Housing Census, would also endeavour various stakeholders participating in the exercise to be abrest with the conduct of the exercise.
He solicited for the cooperations and supports of the Journalists as critical stakeholders to ensure a successful exercise, saying that the Commission is putting every machinery in motion to achieve the desired results.
Ayodeji reiterated the readiness of the Commission to conduct a successful exercise, promised that the Commission will continue to engage with the media on all its activities, especially towards the successful conduct of the exercise.
Earlier, in his welcome address, the Ekiti State Director, NPC, Mr Ademola Oladapo, said the programme is tergeted at creating awareness on the preparatory and the activities of the NPC towards the exercise.
He solicited for the collaborations of the various media outlets operating in the State for publicity and advocacy of the members of the public, saying the move would further make the organization to conduct a hitch-free exercise.
In his paper titled “Processes and Methodology for the 2023 Population and Housing Census”, the Head of Unit, Technical Department, NPC Mrs Yemisi Ipinlaye, disclosed that the organization have trained a total number of 786, 751 functionaries out of which about 623,797 are enumerators and 125,944 supervisors.
Other preparatory move by the organisation mentioned by him are training of about 24,001 Data Quality Assistant, 12,000 Field Coordinators 1,000 Data Quality Managers, 1,639 Trained Centres Administrators and 59,000 local government level facilitators among others.
Deiscribing population as a critical factor in a nation’s efforts towards achieving sustainable development, said the organization have engaged in adequate training of its personnel apparently to conduct a smooth conduct of the exercise.