The Kogi State Federal Commissioner for National Population Census (NPC), Professor Jimoh Habibat Isah, has dispelled rumours making the rounds that the commission’s server has been hacked.
Addressing newsmen on Tuesday, he said although there were over one thousand glitches on the server by hackers, the inbuilt mechanism has made it impregnable for the infiltrators.
He explained that the server was built with imputation of different passwords at every stage of its operation only known to the commission, making it difficult for hackers to cause havoc on the system.
He said in a bid to pass relevant messages to the populace, series of sensitisation, awareness and advocacy programmes have being carried out adding that publicity Committee has been inaugurated at the center and states in order to reach the grassroots with reliable messages that will arouse the interest of the citizenry to participate in the forthcoming population and House Census.
While stressing the importance of the National Population exercise to national planning and development, he said the government has committed both human and material resources to ensure its success.
The Commissioner said to discourage the contentious issue of ethnicity and creed, the commission decided to remove tribe and religion from its questionnaire to be administered during the exercise.
While assuring that every person would be captured , said , respondents do not need to relocate to their towns and villages for headcount but to remain in their place of residence as state and local Government Councils of origin are imputed in the questionnaire.
He explained that the commission is determined to protect her officials on assignment as relevant security agencies and community driven security outfits have been adequately mobilised to ensure smooth and seamless exercise.
The Commissioner said, to ensure that all communities are covered during the exercise, the commission would only post enumerators and other officials who are known and conversant with their local Government areas.
He commended the state government for their support to the Commission in areas of security and logistics support, and called on the people of the state to avail themselves for the exercise.
In a remark, the state Director of NPC, Mr. Abiodun Titus, assured the citizenry that the commission is prepared to conduct a reliable and dependable census .
He added that formalities are in advanced stage for the commencement of training for enumerators and ad-hoc officers, saying , very soon , the Federal Executive Council will approve timelines for the training.
READ ALSO FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE
and then