The National Population Commission (NPC) in Oyo State on Thursday flagged off its state-level training for facilitators and specialised workforce for the 2023 census exercise in the state.
During the flag-off, the Federal Commissioner of the NPC in the state, Dr Eyitayo Oyetunji, said those undergoing the training of the 2,000 facilitators and 686 specialised workforces are being conducted across five centres in the state.
Eyitato said that Ibadan, the state capital, has two centres, other centres are in Oyo, Iseyin and Ogbomoso.
He said: “The centres were deliberately spread into the significant zones of the state to ease the accommodation and transportation of participants.
“The NPC is devoting priority attention and effort to training primarily based on the understanding that the success of the census exercise will very much depend on the quality of personnel that will be deployed to the field to collect the census data.”
Also speaking, the Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Matters in the state, Mr Olasunkanmi Olaleye, said that the training of the facilitators, who are expected to go ahead to train supervisors and enumerators at the local government level, is critical to the success of the census in the state.
The commissioner, therefore, charged the people of the state to cooperate with the field functionaries in making a success of the exercise.
Speaking further, the commissioner said: “I want to assure you that as a government, we are aware of some constraints and problems encountered at the previous exercise, but we believe as we move on, all these will be smoothened and we shall improve on that.”
On the issue of security for the officials, Mr Olaleye said: “I want to solicit the cooperation and support of security agencies in Oyo State in providing adequate security for the protection of lives and properties of the functionaries.”
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