Ahead of the 2023 Census exercise, the National Population Commission (NPC) has made a passionate appeal to the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and other pro-Biafra groups against interfering with the process.
The commission recalled that such was the case in 2006 census when the then Movement for the Actualisation for the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) hurriedly conclude the exercise in the zone.
The plea was made by NPC Federal Commissioner in charge of Abia State, Chief Jonny Nwabuisi, at a media engagement yesterday in the state capital as he condemned the negative effect of the MASSOB opposition to census in South East which eventually low participation in the region.
He explained that a successful population census would be in the interest of everybody including those pushing for referendum, arguing that referendum must be based on population.
His words:” In 2006, it was MASSOB; today it’s IPOB. But I say that it’s in the interest of IPOB to allow the census. If they talk of referendum, they cannot do it in a vacuum.
”Referendum is based on population and IPOB has no population of its own that is recognized by any international body that can conduct referendum. They only rely on the population of Nigeria.
“So, it’s imperative and necessary for IPOB members to help in propagating the advocacy on census so that the South East will have a successful census. Otherwise, whatever thing they are doing will be a failure.”.
Nwabuisi hinted that the 2023 census would be conducted in April as he maintained that measures had been put in place for a credible and successful exercise.
Asked if the general election won’t affect the seamless conduct of the census, the NPC boss assured that it would be a huge success.
On the method of enumeration during the exercise, Nwabuisi said only persons sighted physically would be enumerated, adding that no person (s) would be captured by proxy.
Responding to a question, the NPC boss, however, ruled out the option of electronic capturing during the exercise.
He said that the enumerators would feed the data they collect from the people into the commission’s data bank.
