Nigeria is set to hold it’s first digital census later this month and the National Population Commission (NPC) has been actively engaging scores of personnel in training, in preparation for the first full digital consensus in the country. Recall Nigeria last conducted its national census in 2006, where Nigeria’s population was put at 150.46 million. From then, the population has multiplied, increasing to over 223 million. However, the technological discrepancies that ravaged the use of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System has cast a shadow of doubt over the consistency of a digital census.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressive Congress, the winner of the just concluded presidential election on Wednesday. This election, however, did not go without immense criticism from the general public, as to the huge revenue spent on a technological system that failed most Nigerians when it mattered the most. Amongst other challenges that surfaced during the presidential and NASS election, INEC has been hugely criticized for the poor performance of the technological systems.
Concerns raised as to the legitimacy of the just concluded election result.
Amid the numerous criticisms for a badly conducted election within states like Imo, Rivers and Lagos, there was an evident inefficiency of the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS). Despite the continuous promises of INEC’s Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu as to the efficacy of the introduced technology, elections were still allegedly rigged across the country, raising major concerns as to the legitimacy of the results declared on Wednesday, as well as INEC’s stance.
Prior to this election, Mahmood Yakubu, at Chatham House in January, admitted that there were issues discovered with the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System when first applied for elections in Anambra and FCT, in November 2021 and February 2022 respectively. He thus claimed that the commission had to take a step back and procure solutions to the detected problems. Not only were the BVAS devices not dysfunctional, some of the INEC ad-hoc staffs were less enlightened as to the use of the device, rendering them incapable.
Zinox Technology awarded contract to supply PDA devices for the census.
While INEC in an official statement, blamed this issue on technical hitches which occurred while scaling up the IREV to better oversee the general election, the European Union Election Observation Mission asserted that it was the immense lack of transparency and operational hitches that impacted everyone’s trust in the electioneering process. Since the declaration, opposition parties have indicated their rejection of the results, demanding for a re-election. Whilst Bola Tinubu is the pronounced President-Elect, other candidates have commenced the litigation process.
With the election coming to an end, the National Population Commission is expected to be adequately prepared to hold a credible population census scheduled at the month’s end. Earlier, one of the first equipment manufacturers in West Africa, Zinox Technology, was awarded the N85 billion contract for the supply of Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs) devices to be used for the 2023 population census. The Managing Director, Kelechi Okonta, noted that the company would deploy all necessary resources to ensure an effectively carried out population census.
Housing types will be collected to enhance physical & social planning.
Nasir Isa Kwarra, the Chairman of NPC, also noted that the acquired geospatial resources would be facilitated, ensuring Nigerians that statistics on housing types would also be collected to further enhance the government’s physical and social planning. On the short-handedness challenge that INEC faced, Abubakar Damburam, the NPC Gombe Commissioner indicated that the population commission must further invest in training its staffs to curb this challenge. He also assured the public on the effectiveness of the instruments, noting that the census instruments had been pretested.
Related Link
National Population Commission: Website
Will census differ from INEC’s poor tech? –National Population Commission promises effectiveness of digital census. – Express your point of view.
There is no need for INEC being criticized for the poor performance of the technological systems. All parties rigged the election; that’s why they are pained. Best rigger won.
National Population Commission promises effectiveness of digital census. I hate hearing of INEC because they part of enemy of this country Nigeria. They keep on rigging election for the purpose of money
With the way INEC organised and conducted this year election which is very short of the expectations of citizens and the international community,I don’t think I expecting much from the National Population Commission to conduct credible census that will be accepted by both citizens and the international community.
The INEC’s tech innovation could have been intentionally tampered with, to appear as poor or ineffective for the purpose of rigging. I believe we have no reason to rig census, so it should work well
The National Population Commission of Nigeria has been actively engaging dozens of staff in training in preparation for the nation’s first digital census, which will take place at the end of this month.
Though we have the skill and capital to run technological devices but lack the ability of management. The Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) failure is the lack of management skills from the side of INEC. The National Population Commission (NPC) shouldn’t repeat the failure of INEC.
I am quite sure that the National Population Commission must have learn from the mistake of INEC. Howbeit, the Censor is different from election. The former is dealing with Censorship of population while the latter is dealing election to position. I don’t think NPC will have issues.
There is now some uncertainty about the reliability of a digital census because of the technological problems that plagued the deployment of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System.
Many Nigerians felt that the enormous sums of money invested on a technical system that ultimately let them down during the election were a waste of time and money.
A lot of people were unhappy with how much money was spent on a technical system that didn’t work for most Nigerians when it counted.
While the Independent National Electoral Commission has attributed this problem, in an official statement, to technological difficulties that arose when increasing the capacity of the IREV in order to more effectively monitor the general election,
In light of the fact that the census instruments had been subjected to preliminary testing, the government and INEC ought to reassure the people about the efficiency of the instruments.
The organization promised to devote all of the resources at its disposal to ensure that the population count was carried out accurately.
There’s now a lot of uncertainty regarding the credibility of the introduction of technology to certain processes in our system. INEC flopped and Nigerians now have doubts
I don’t think I can put much faith in the nation’s population commission after the way INEC organized and conducted this year’s election, which fell far below the standards of citizens and the world community.
NPC might be different from INEC poor tech they are training and employing people to make it as success one I hope the tech they want to use work effectively
The INEC election process shortcomings should not be correlated to how the National population census process will be. The agency in charge needs to be careful with how to mange the data and be accurate.
As the census instruments have already undergone testing process, the government and INEC should reassure the public about their accuracy.
I hope the technology they want to deploy will function well because NPC can be distinct from INEC because to its inferior technology.
Well the impact of Census can’t be the same to impact of INEC. Nevertheless, I hope their own technology too doesn’t fail and it works maximally.