The population and housing census that was originally slated to take place at the end of this month in Nigeria will instead take place in May of 2023.
On Wednesday, at the conclusion of the weekly meeting of the Federal Executive Council, which was presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari, Minister of Information and Culture Lai Mohammed made this information available to members of the press.
The Minister noted that the decision to shift the date was forced by the rescheduling of the gubernatorial election to March 18. This was the reason that the Minister felt it was necessary to alter the date.
He also revealed that the Council had sanctioned the sum of N2.8 billion for the National Population Commission (NPC) to purchase some software that will be used for the conduct of the census. This information was provided by him.
According to him: “There was a memo provided by the National Population Commission, looking for some software to allow them to perform the census in May of this year.” The census is scheduled to take place in May of this year. I assume that due to the rescheduling of the elections, they will not be able to begin the census as scheduled. They submitted a request to the Council asking for permission to enter into a contract to purchase software for the census at a cost of N2.8 billion.