Nigeria, the most populous country on the African continent with 200 million inhabitants, will conduct its first national census in 17 years between late March and early April, a key count to estimate, for example, the distribution of the substantial oil profits among the more than 300 ethnic communities living in the country’s 36 states.
In its announcement on Saturday, the National Population Commission assured citizens that there will be «no room for manipulation» thanks to the use of new counting technologies, in the words of its chairman, Nasir Isa Kwarra.
Although the authorities have given themselves only five days to conduct the census, the use of new satellite positioning systems will allow for the closest possible count.
«In theory and practice it will be the same as other censuses,» said Kwarra, «but we are going to use state-of-the-art technology, and no one will be able to manipulate the resulting figure, because we are not going to count anyone twice,» he told a press conference reported by the Arise television network.
«We intend to be transparent, fast and verifiable,» he added before recalling that the authorities have already completed the initial procedures of demarcation of areas for the development of the census in firm between March 29 and April 2, about a month after the presidential election.
Nigeria will thus hold a recount initially scheduled for 2021 and that ended up postponed due to the enormous insecurity caused by criminal groups operating in the country, the so-called «bandits», whose practices of kidnapping, extortion and murder have terrorized the population of remote localities.
United Nations estimates suggest that more than 400 million people could be living in Nigeria by 2050, which would make the African country the third most populous in the world, ahead of even the United States.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
