May 11, 2023

A National Population Commissioner, Retired Capt. Charles Ogwa, says it is not possible for the enumerators engaged as ad-hoc staff for the forthcoming National Population and Housing Census to influence data on the commission’s devices.

Ogwa, who is representing Cross River in the National Population Commission (NPC), stated this while fielding questions from newsmen on Thursday in Calabar.

He said that although the census exercise had been postponed by the Federal Government, the commission was effectively preparing.

The federal commissioner maintained that the commission’s technology for the exercise had zero tolerance for corruption, adulteration and interference, adding that necessary tests had been carried out during the trial census.

“We have a standardised digital technology system for the whole country and every data captured is sent to the same server from the enumerators to the supervisors for onward transmission to local government officials.

“So as an enumerator, you cannot tell lies or falsify data, because immediately you do, the Data Quality Assistants will find out and carry out a confirmatory test for that ward.

“The principle of ‘bashiga,’ (no entrance) will not work in this census because if an enumerator is refused entrance into a household, he will key in blank for the household, which is a disadvantage to that community,” he said.

Ogwa noted that although the devices did not capture biometrics, which would have been a conflict of duties with the National Identity Management Commission, (NIMC), there would be data compatibility.

He added that so far, no country in the world had deployed biometrics in its census taking, because it would bring up more issues.

“For example, some Nigerians have put in their National Identity Cards (NIN) that they were born in 1950 and the same people will tell enumerators during the census that they were born in 1955. This will create some challenges for the system.

“I assure the residents of Cross River that the commission is ever ready to conduct a digital census that will generate reliable and acceptable data that will be used to plan for the state.

“The postponement only gives us more time to address some real issues, mostly with compendium of localities, which will minimise litigation in Cross River after the exercise,” Ogwa said. (NAN)