The President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio has stressed the need to conduct another census to assist Nigeria in its national planning.
Akpabio stressed that the conduct of another census was long overdue, noting the last exercise was conducted in 2006
The Senate President made the remarks while playing host to members and management of the National Population Commission (NPC) who visited him to update him on the preparation for the next census.
“I don’t want to call it a national disgrace, but can I say it’s a national embarrassment that even Nigerians who go outside to represent us in different fora do not know the number of Nigerians.
“Sometimes you will go to some places and they will say 250 million Nigerians. At another place, they will say you people are over 270 million. Some African countries think we are over 300 million.
“If you go to places where they are holding retreat now, they are now shrinking the number from 250 million to 220 million. I think it’s time to bring that confusion to an end.
“Any country that fails to know its population has already started to fail in its planning. You cannot truly plan for the future if you don’t know the number of mouths you want to feed. You do not know the number of children that you want to put in schools. You can’t know the number of classroom blocks you will build.
“We must plan. Any country that does not plan for its future has already accepted to fail. We will be failing future generation of Nigerians if we do not begin to plan for the future and starting the planning is this Census. This census is important so that we know how many people we are planning for.”
Akpabio assured members of the NPC that the National Assembly would support the Commission to succeed.
“It is very important that we support you. The National Assembly will support you to succeed. I have no doubt, with the calibre of men and women that I have seen here, that the task Mr President has given to you, once the proclamation is done, you will rise to the occasion. And I know that the National Assembly, the Senate in particular, will stand by you all the way,” he said.
Earlier, NPC chairman, Nasir Isa Kwarra said the visit was to keep the Senate President abreast of preparation and seek continued support of the National Assembly for the next census.
“We cannot conduct this census without your support. So we will continue to count on your support and we want to make Nigerians proud by conducting a very thorough census that will yield a lot of data that will assist in planning policy formulation and tracking our development,” Kwarra said.