Nigeria To Conduct National Census After 17 Years In 2023

The Nigerian Government has approved the conduct of a national population census in 2023 after the forthcoming general elections.

Chairman of the National Population Commission (NPC), Nasir Isa-Kwarra, disclosed this after the Council of State meeting convened by President Muhammadu Buhari on Thursday.

According to Isa-Kwarra, the NPC will conduct a pilot census in June 2022 ahead of the main census scheduled for April 2023.

“The National Population Commission is to conduct a Pilot Census in June this year, after the political parties’ primary elections.

“It is very crucial to hold a census because it is a very important exercise for the nation.

“This is because through census we generate the data that we use for policy making, for planning, for development, by the three tiers of government, and the private sector, they all need this.

“If you are a private sector, you’re producing something; certainly, you need to know the population of an area if you want to create a market there.

“So, census data is very crucial, very important. Because, the data we’ve been using are just projections, estimation. And are sort of obsolete, we need the actual census data to use for our planning,’’ said Isa-Kwarra.

The census, if held according to plans, would be coming 17 years after the country conducted its last national census.

Nigeria’s last population and housing census was carried out in 2006 and the result showed that the country had a total population of 140 million, with Kano in the North accounting for 9.4 million, followed by Lagos with 9 million in the South.

In general, northern states account for 75 million people while the southern states had 65 million people.

As of 2020, Trading Economics estimated the total population in Nigeria at 206.14 million people.