Over 4,100 enumerators engaged for trial census in Nasarawa ― Coordinator

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Over 4,100 enumerators were engaged for the trial population and housing census in Nasarawa, the National Population Commission (NPC) State Coordinator, Mr Bamidele Sadiku has disclosed.

He said out of 5200 trained functionaries, 5034 were engaged out of which 4,146 are enumerators.

While speaking with Tribune Online at the Karu Local Government Area (LGA) Secretariat, Nasarawa, he gave the breakdown to include 748 supervisors and 148 field coordinators.

He said the trial exercise which commenced on the 27th of June, was to test all measures put in place to ensure a hitch-free, credible census in 2023.

“During this trial census, there were hitches that were taken care of. We took note of security challenges in areas where there were concerns,” he said.

Also speaking on the “census night”, he said the exercise is conducted a night before the commencement of the census.

In his explanations, he said the exercise seeks to enumerate special groups such as homeless persons.

“Census night is meant for a special population. They are special groups that you cannot find in normal households. People that sleep in markets, and motor parks.

“We call them homeless persons because during the day, you will not see them and that is why census starts at 12 midnight, the night preceding the night of the census exercise,” he said.

He disclosed that the GPS location of this group of persons was already on its map saying: “They have been identified before then, there is a geo reference of where they are located on our maps.

“So we just roll out functionaries to those specific areas where they can be located with adequate security, sensitization and mobilization.

“Ordinarily, you would not know that people sleep there but because we courted the market executives, we were able to gain entrance and they were counted.”

Baring the security situation in the country, he stated that the Commission had partnered with the various security agencies to provide adequate security for functionaries.

“We were there with enough security, Nigeria Police, Civil Defence we had more than 50 armed security men on the ground and we did the census night at the building materials market New Nyanya, Mararaba,” he added.

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