By Abbas Bamalli

The National Population Commission (NPC) says Nigeria’s population remains its greatest asset in national development and must be harnessed to make life worth living for the people, adding that 2023 census will be the best ever.

NPC’s Federal Commissioner for Katsina State, Engr. Bala Banye, made the declaration on Thursday in Katsina at a two-day state level workshop on compendium of localities for the 2023 population and housing census.

He said the compendium of localities would be presented to President Muhammad Buhari before the 2023 exercise.

“With the huge resources spent on the Enumeration Area Demarcation (EAD), we are happy that the NPC has acquired a lot of data sets that will be useful for national development.

“I commend the Cartography Department for its efforts to deliver more data for the locality level from the EAD exercise.

“The present Commission under its current leadership is devoted to collaboration and partnership with relevant agencies to advance national development,’’ he said.

Banye implored all participants at the workshop to work with the NPC to achieve excellent results that will add more value to socio-economic development of the country.

He said the objective of the workshop was to compile all the localities demarcated during the EAD on a local government area basis showing the coverage and location on interactive maps.

“This compilation will be presented to the local government area stakeholders in the state. The compendium of locality in census parlance is a tool for census data dissemination as well as for National planning and development.

“The 2023 population and housing census results will be released up to the lowest level of the census entities which could be as small as a camp,’’ Banye said.

He assured Nigerians that the Commission was irrevocably committed to positively rewriting the history of censuses in Nigeria.

He said the NPC would deliver accurate, reliable and acceptable census figures that would be purposefully relevant in the drive toward sustainable national development.

The commissioner pointed out that preparations for the 2023 exercise were on course and the NPC is confident of discharging the function effectively.

“I appeal to Nigerians to join the NPC in the bid to give Nigeria reliable demographic data at the forthcoming 2023 census,’’ Banye said.

In his contribution, one of the participants, and a Director at the National Orientation Agency (NOA), in Katsina State office, Alhaji Hadi Yahaya, assured of the agency’s support toward the success of the exercise.

He said the NOA would engage in a series of public enlightenment activities like community drama, market rallies, and community dialogue to support the exercise.

Participants at the workshop included traditional rulers, community leaders and local government chairmen among others. (NAN)