Three years after assuming office as chairman, National Population Commission, I am in a position to know that Nigerians across every ethnic, state and political divide are genuinely worried about credible census outcomes. They have confronted me with questions touching on the credibility of census outcomes countless of times. The questions are usually framed thus ‘’What is the guarantee that the next census outcome will not be as controversial as those of the past’’?
Usually, the questions are asked in sceptical tones loaded with pessimism about the possibility of credible census in Nigeria. The scepticism is not totally misplaced bearing in mind the controversies that attended census exercises in the past. The first census was conducted in 1863 in the then Lagos colony and followed by other 13 censuses. The outcomes of these censuses, rightly or wrongly, have not inspired general acceptability and confidence.
On my part, I have been very forthright in answering such questions. One such answer is the fact that that the next census is definitely going to be different from past exercises because the commission intends to rely more on technology than human elements. There is a direct correlation between processes and outcomes of any activity. A good process produces a good outcome. In the case of the census, having a credible census must begin with a credible and error proof process. One major feature of processes of past censuses was the pervasive presence of human elements. Often, everything involving human beings come with certain foibles like prejudice, stereotypes and even genuine errors which are capable of distorting the real essence of the census. The present commission has therefore resolved to divorce the human elements from the entire census processes. In this new configuration, which will rely on Electronic Data Capture (EDC) devices, the facial and fingerprint features of every respondent will be captured in a hand-held android powered machine.
What is special about this, you may ask? It is special because experts have confirmed that no two persons share the same fingerprint marks. The EDC will be able to scan the fingerprints of respondents and reject fingerprints of persons that have been counted more than once. The novelty of this approach enables the commission to combat such malpractices like multiple enumeration and enumeration of ghost respondents, which constitute the most viral problem in every census exercise. Eliminating them all together are sure steps to take, if the integrity of census exercise is to be restored. Each handheld device will be configured in such a way that it will receive, store and transmit variety of data collected from each respondent in a given household. By the way, the exercise is de facto in the sense that only persons who are physically present and seen by the enumerators will be counted.
The capacity of the enumerators to tamper with the enumeration process is severely limited as the EDCs are automated. Above all, the information received in the device will be streamed real time to servers that will ultimately download the data to the head office. In other words, it will be possible to monitor the activities of the field workers as they go about their duties.
The issue of multiple and ghost enumeration is hardly the only problem in a census exercise. There is this other problem of overlapping of enumeration areas and omission of certain places. Nigeria is not only vast in terms of size but also has many remote areas which are hard to reach. Some of the challenges experienced in past censuses had to do with the capacity to effectively delineate the country for enumeration purpose resulting in some areas either not demarcated or demarcated more than once. We are trying to solve this problem by embarking on a high technology-based mapping of enumeration areas. In this regard, using high-resolution satellite imageries, we are able to produce maps of every community, town or settlement in this country. When this is done, the commission’s field workers will identify these communities on the ground and proceed to demarcate them in line with the best international practices. The goal here is to reduce the entire country into smaller units, corresponding to enumeration areas, which can be assigned to enumerators for purposes of enumeration of persons and households therein.
The above in a nutshell represents the efforts of the commission to end the issue of controversial census. Beside, we do not intend to operate in a silo. We want to engage Nigerians on all the steps we intend to take. The reason is to get them to critically examine these steps, including the budget and share their views with us. We shall take corrections where necessary.
Much more importantly, we expect the Nigerian people to stand up as the vanguards and champions of credible census in the country. The people must be vigilant in the census process and ensure data collected during the census represent the actual demographic conditions of their communities. Perpetration of census malpractices is a great disservice to the existence and well-being of any entity. A faulty census outcome will deny the people the benefits of a good census. A community that colludes with the political class to inflate the census figures will not know the number of children for whom schools are to be built, the number of people to be provided employment and the number of children and mothers who require immunization and health services. While inflated census figures may serve the narrow and short-term interest of the political class, the long term development interest of the community or entity is at risk. The people must therefore constitute themselves into the vanguards of the census integrity and stop any effort to prevent the community from knowing its real figures and its characteristics. A society that indulges in census inflation is living in illusion and will not discover itself or its potentials.
The importance of these efforts lies in the larger fact that census is the single most important data generation exercise. In addition to the head count which yields the population figure for the country, there are also other data on such matters as health facilities, household facilities, migration figures, occupational characteristics, educational level etc. Data provided from the listed items above are as important as the headcount results. The commission plans to conduct a census with value added going beyond the simple question of providing answer to how many are we in the country. Unfortunately, it is the headcount result that interest people most of the time. It is this obsession with the headcount outcome that is at the centre of the desperation which makes people do everything possible to doctor or manipulate a census exercise.
Another question which I must honestly deal with here is the issue of timing of census. There is a palpable apprehension that the times are not conducive to holding a census now. According to this school of thought, the economy, as weak as it is, cannot support a census now. This point of view is specious, with due respect to those who canvas it. I say so, because it ignores the real benefits of accurate census. It is generally believed that an accurate census is a sine qua non for national planning and development. If that is so, as indeed it is, is it not at such times like this that we should go back to the drawing board for planning? Is any person suggesting that the planning can take place in a vacuum without the necessary data? Or at best, is the suggestion that we should continue to rely on the “about” statistics or data that possibly bedevilled our planning in the past? That definitely amounts to cutting our nose to spite our face. Or worse still that amounts to “penny wise pound foolish”. We must resist the temptation to resort to easy answers or solutions. We need to take the issue of national planning a lot more seriously because we cannot continue to do things in the same way and expect different result. On the basis of the above, my submission is that this period provides a golden opportunity to do a census because it is almost like ground zero.
From the submission above, it is possible for Nigeria to have credible census outcomes if it adopts an equally credible and transparent process divorcing the intrusion of human elements from the process through the use of appropriate technology. No doubt, the machines will still be used by human beings but the processes are so thorough and not susceptible to manipulations. The conduct of a biometric based census through the use of the EDCs will sanitize the census process. However, in addition to technology, we must develop the positive orientation of seeing census for what it is, as a tool for planning for development and not figures to be taunted for political advantages.
- Duruiheoma, SAN is executive chairman, National Population Commission.
