NPC admits spending N200bn in eight years preparing for census

The National Population Commission (NPC), on Friday, admitted spending N200 billion preparing for the nation’s population census in the last eight years.

NPC’s Director of Public Affairs, Isiaka Yahaya, stated this at a press conference in Abuja on Friday, declaring that the insinuation that the sum was spent in the last few years was erroneous, as the commission has been preparing for the census since 2014.

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“Yes, it is true that N200bn has been spent on preparations for the 2023 Census so far. However, this fund was not expended in the last few weeks, months or years but rather since 2014 when preparations for the 2023 Census actually began.

“Indeed, part of the N200 billion was expended before the coming of the present commission, which was inaugurated twice between 2018 and 2020 and even before the inception of the Buhari Administration,” he said.

According to Yahaya, the money was spent on different preparatory processes to ensure the exercise comes out with credible and acceptable data, adding that chief among its spending was the demarcation of the country into enumeration areas for easy clustering and which has provided the country with data on the number of houses in the country.

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