The National Population Commission, or NPC, promised Nigerians on Monday that the population and housing census of 2023 would be conducted in a professional manner and that it would strive for demographic perfection.
Nasir Isa-Kwarra, the chairman of the commission, offered the guarantee at the flag-off of the trial Post Enumeration Survey (Pes) in a few selected states from the six geopolitical zones of the federation in Abuja.
Anambra, Adamawa, Bayelsa, Katsina, Nasarawa, and Ogun states were among the states chosen for the PES trial, which is scheduled to begin on October 18, 2022.
The PES, according to the NPC chairman, is a component of the planning for the April 2023 implementation of Nigeria's first totally digital census.
He explained that “The Post Enumeration Survey (PES) is a statistically representative survey that the National Population Commission will use to check the accuracy of the Trial Census conducted in July 2022. The PES will allow the commission to determine how many people were missed, included by mistake, or counted in the wrong place.
“The conduct of the Trial PES is an integral part of the preparatory activities for the conduct of a successful census in 2023. The Commission is placing premium importance on this exercise. As you know, a Population census is the official enumeration of all persons in a country at a specific time.
“This encompasses the collection, compilation, evaluation, analysis, publication and dissemination of demographic, social and economic statistics relating to the population.
“However, errors are inevitable in a large-scale data collection exercise such as a Census. Errors can arise from many sources in the conduct of the census, especially in field data collection and processing procedures.
“Census designs can also be a source of error by introducing measurement errors through wrong questionnaires, instructions, training materials, and procedures for data collection. The PES, therefore, has been designed to redress these possible errors in the census process. The results of the comparison are mainly used to measure coverage and content error in the context of the census.”
To this end, he reiterated the commitment of the Commission to conduct a credible and reliable census, which he said the result would be planning tools for national development through rigorous planning and the use of international best practices at every stage of the process.