National Population Commission has advised Nigerians not to travel to their state of origin for the forthcoming census.
Gatekeepers News reports that the NPC stressed that citizens living away from their states of origin do not need to travel home for the exercise.
While stating that people would be enumerated at their places of residence, the Commission said it has put up measures to guard against all forms of malpractices ahead of the forthcoming population and housing census.
The spokesperson for the commission, Isiaka Yahaya, disclosed this in an interview with ThePUNCH on Monday.
Yahaya said, ”People should stay where they are, to be counted. They are not to move to their states of origin. It is totally against the essence of the census. You have to be counted where you reside because that’s where you enjoy the social facilities like education and health, among others.
“Apart from this, when the time comes for people to be provided with infrastructure and other things you will not allow the planners to have accurate figures. People are not to move.”
On measures to check malpractices, the NPC spokesman said, “This is a de facto census. We are asking practical questions about those who are living, not those who are yet to be born. We have not trained our enumerator to count people who are not yet born. We have a system in place to guard against all the malpractices that we have envisaged.
“Also, people can only be counted in their houses. This is to discourage people from moving from one place to another after being counted. You can only be counted in one place. There’s will nothing to lie about. When we get to your house, the enumerators would see whatever you say you have and we are not asking for the owner of the house, why will anybody lie?”
He noted that the commission had not finished the recruitment process for enumerators.
