THE National Population Commission(NPC) on Thursday said it has so far expended N3.5billion on the Enumeration Area Demarcation(EAD) of 112 Local Government Areas.
The EAD is a pre-census exercise, that not only forms the basis for both planning and execution of the census but also involves the division of the country’s landmass into small units to allow for easy coverage during the census.
Speaking at a briefing on the commencement of fieldwork for the continuation of the EAD in Abuja, the Commission’s Acting Chairman Alhaji Hassan Bashir stated that a new batch of the exercise which commenced yesterday will be conducted in one LGA in 18 States of 23 selected States.
He disclosed that the exercise was postponed in five States due to election rerun and has been rescheduled to commence on Saturday 30th March 2019. The States are; Kano, Kaduna, Rivers, Adamawa and Taraba.
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The Acting Chairman added that: “at the end of this EAD, the commission would have successfully demarcated in all 135 LGAs while the remaining 639 LGAs will be covered in the subsequent programmes.
“A 52 person Demarcation team consisting of 40 demarcators, 10 supervisors and 2 quality control assistants has been recruited for each of the 23 states involved.
He further noted that funding constraints has continued to be a major setback in its preparation for the census exercise stressing that: “ already the country is behind schedule for the next headcount after the 2006 population and housing census and there is a limit beyond which estimated as opposed to raw data, cease to be useful indices in effective planning and execution of national development programmes.”
However, he urged States and Local Government Councils, traditional institutions and communities in the listed areas to support the commission in carrying out its mandate.
“They should also assist us to sensitise the people on the essence of the project and solicit their cooperation,” he said.