The chairman of the National Population Commission (NPC), Chief Festus Odimegwu, has declared that Nigeria has not had any credible census since 1816. He attributed the intractable problem to the distortion and falsification of figures for reasons that border on selfishness and perpetration of electoral fraud.

Odimegwu pointed out that even the last headcount conducted in 2006 was flawed. The only way to address the challenge, he explained, is to review the country’s laws to facilitate genuine enumeration. The NPC boss stated that Nigeria had run on falsehood for a long time, a development that must be rectified at all costs if the country is to move forward.

There is no doubt that faulty population figures drastically affect planning and, invariably, development. This is largely at the root of the country’s poor human development index and overall backwardness in most parameters of national transformation. At the heart of the unreliable censuses over the years are the twin sore points: ethnicity and religion. These two indicators have remained the core issues because of the struggle for supremacy on both grounds by the three major ethnic groups in the country. The clamour for supremacy by the three combative ethnic behemoths in the country must be confronted if the country is to advance in citizen data collation.

Unless the census challenge is comprehensively managed and grey areas resolved, Nigeria will continue to wallow in the milieu of socio-economic quagmire arising from blind and unrealisable projections. It is certain that the country is rapidly getting overpopulated. The far-reaching implication of this untoward manifestation is the stretching of the country’s collapsing social infrastructure.

We hope that no pressure from any quarter would be mounted on the leadership of the NPC as the commission begins preparations for a standard and credible headcount that will be acceptable to all stakeholders.

This caution is imperative because once this is done or the NPC is compromised in whatever manner, the outcome of such an exercise will be flawed from conception, in spite of the huge financial outlay that would be involved. Demographic manipulation deleteriously rubs off on all facets of our national life.

It may not be possible to get the exact population of Nigeria, but care must be taken to ensure that there is no inflation of figures, as obtained in the past. There must be no overestimation, underestimation or faulty categorisation of the various components that constitute a plausible census. The NPC must know that questionable headcounts inevitably undermine the totality of development. Therefore, its members must put in their best and foreclose all loopholes that defy a semblance of population accuracy.

According to the NPC boss, “Nigeria has run on falsehood for too long. We must stop this falsehood and put a stop to all of these. The Boko Haram problem is partly as a result of that.

Because the 2006 census was not correct, the former board of NPC was unable to publish the figures. If they try it, there will be uproar. We must make Nigeria work. We cannot do that unless we know the statistics. We cannot build infrastructure without demographic data. As long as the figures in Nigeria are wrong, corruption will continue to thrive. We must have an organised data before we can plan for Nigeria.”

He advised that Nigeria should either conduct a credible census exercise or forget about it in 2016 as planned. “It is either we do an accurate census or we will not do anything. We are committed to giving Nigerians a credible and reliable census. Nigerians are whipping up sentiments, but we have gone beyond ethnic sentiments. Nigerian children are suffering and many youths have no jobs.”

Odimegwu’s interjection on Nigeria’s census challenge is encouraging. It suggests that he has studied the problem and resolved to make a difference by giving the country a genuine headcount. As the NPC boss has advised, the government must review the laws as they affect headcount in the country to empower the population agency to conduct a credible exercise.

The relevant authorities should also dispassionately consider other initiatives?? suggested by the NPC to forestall logistical and other encumbrances that may affect the 2016 exercise.

We believe the past censuses offer the country and the NPC enough lessons to redress previous shortcomings. Nothing should be left to chance in the next enumeration so that Nigeria, for once, can have a credible, reliable and generally acceptable census. This will ultimately aid socio-economic transformation of the country.

We can no longer afford to have an unreliable and controversial census. The time to act is now. We wish the Odimegwu-led NPC good luck in this gargantuan assignment.