A civil society organisation, Save Nigeria Movement (SNM) has charge social media influencers to mobilise Nigerians to embrace the proposed national digital census as their contribution to harnessing national development.

The CSO at a press conference on Thursday in Abuja noted that the history of census in Nigeria has been of suspicions, distrust but expressed optimism that the digital census will dispel all infractions.

In this light, the group urged social media influencers to harness their experiences, professionalism and commitment to towards making Nigeria’s first ever digital census a huge success.

“As social media influencers, you have a role to play as advocates. The history of census in Nigeria is full of suspicions, distrust, alleged inflation of figures and so on. However, a digital census with all its biometric features will clear all forms of suspicions and distrust as nobody will be counted twice and no imaginary entries will be made.

” It is important to let Nigerians know this through your influence and interactions. With the modalities in place, no tribe or state can manipulate their numbers at the expense of others. The exact population of Nigerians will be known including other very important statistics within a very short period of time.

“As social media influencers and patriotic Nigerians who have chosen to tell the Nigerian story from the lens of your creative minds, it’s important to partner and actively engage your expertise and wild audience in drumming home the need for a successful census exercise and it’s overwhelming impact on our national life, especially in the area of development planning. It is indeed our project and the task before us here today is to invite you all to key into it and deploy all your arsenals in making it a reality.This is because without accurate data, no meaningful development can take place.

“With the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, accurate data is indispensable in bringing to reality the ambitious plans the administration has for Nigerians. It is however, disheartening that Nigeria has not had a census in close to two decades as opposed to the 10 years interval recommended by the United Nations.

“Worst still, even previous census exercises were largely inconclusive and widely disputed. This means that successive administrations had all along depended on assumptions and projections about our population that were largely misleading and useless for genuine and sustainable development.The 2023 National Population and Housing Census which was put on hold by the last administration therefore has to be conducted to give Mr President the required statistics for development.
That remains the only remedy that will guarantee true prosperity for Nigerians in line with the progressive ideas of the current administration.

“For the first time Nigeria is about to conduct a digital census and the advantages are enormous. It will provide Nigeria with accurate information about our true numbers, population structure, age distribution and the other indices that are crucial for development. This will enable the government to focus on priority needs like health care, education, social amenities, social security and employment generation to mention but a few. In fact, there’s no aspect of our national life that will not benefit from this all important exercise, including you, our esteemed social media influencers.

“As a civil society organisation, we are pleased with the commitment of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu towards making the forth coming digital census a reality. He will be giving Nigerians the best gift and also providing crucial data that will enable him actualize the Renewed Hope Agenda and his lofty economic recovery plan.

” In fact, without data, the Renewed Hope Agenda of this administration, noble as it is might just go down the drain like the others before it. The task ahead of us all is to continue to create awareness and be advocates for the National Population Census (NPC) as the commission works tirelessly towards making Nigeria’s first ever digital census a reality.

“Successive administrations in NPC have made concerted efforts to plan, strategize and coordinate this project and must be commended. It is worth noting that the commission has succeeded in creating a digitalized Enumeration Area Demarcation maps using the most advanced Geographic Information System softwares and satellite imagery. This in itself is a huge achievement but more than that, the Commission has successfully deployed Portable Digital Assistants (PDA) with state-of-the-art softwares and hardware to ensure seamless data capture and onward transmission to dedicated servers. The least we can do as social media influencers and civil society organisations is to cooperate with the process and play our part by our positive advocacy.

“Similarly, the Commission has already conducted Mock and Trial Census exercises across some selected Local Governments and States across the country. This is in addition to the training of millions of Nigerians to serve as ad-hoc staff in various capacities across the country. The judicious utilisation of scarce resources by the management of NPC under the Chairmanships of Alhaji Isa Kwarra is commendable and we are glad that President Tinubu has continued to support the Commission and its efforts. What Nigerians are waiting for now is a new date for census exercise and hopefully, it’ll be soon.

“We have taken time to monitor developments at the National Population Commission especially as it relates to this all important event and we are impressed, both with the management and Mr. President. So much is going on behind the scenes together with development partners and relevant agencies.

“On this note, we therefore pass a vote of confidence on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the management team of NPC under Alhaji Isa Kwarra for their dedication and patriotic service to the fatherland, the group added.