Ahead of the 2023 Population and Housing Census, the Centre for Human and Social-economic Rights (CHSR) has called on the National Population Commission (NPC) to do due diligence and guard against failure.

The National President of CHSR, Mr Alex Omotehinse, made the call in an interview with journalists on Friday in Lagos.

Mr Omotehinse, who noted that the nation could not afford to fail in the exercise, urged the NPC to speak out wherever they encountered challenges in the exercise nationwide.

“This census is long overdue and we expect the commission to do due diligence and be painstaking in getting accurate population of Nigerian people.

“We expect every Nigerian to cooperate with the national population commission by staying at places they can be counted, for us to have the actual figure of the population of the people of Nigeria.

“We must get our population right now. Our advice to the commission is to ensure they quickly speak out wherever they have difficulties.

“They must speak out to alert the government, stakeholders and the public and not to wait until after the exercise before giving one excuse or the other about challenges.

“Whenever they have difficulties anywhere all over the country, they should endeavour to speak out to Nigerians. However, we must do our best to get Nigeria’s actual population,” Mr Omotehinse said.

Mr Omotehinse said that all ethnic nationalities in the country must cooperate with the NPC officials to enhance the success of the exercise.

National Housing and Population Census, expected to hold between May 3 and May 5, 2023, is coming 17 years after the last exercise held in 2006.

The 2023 census enumeration of the Nigerian population across the nation’s 774 Local Government Areas will be the fifth national census in the country since Independence.

The 2006 census pegged Nigeria’s population at 140 million. 

(NAN)