Don’t conduct census in 2018, Dogara warns

The Speaker of the House of Representatives , Mr .
Yakubu Dogara , warned on Monday that figures could
be manipulated if a population census was conducted
by Nigeria in 2018.
He stated that political interests would determine the
outcome of the results , rather than the actual figures.
The Speaker argued that 2018 was too close to 2019 ,
an election year , a reason he feared that politicians
could hijack the exercise to their personal advantage .
He gave his opinion to counter the clamour by some
groups for the census to be conducted in 2018 .
Dogara, whose views were conveyed in a statement
in Abuja by his Special Adviser on Media and Public
Affairs , Mr . Turaki Hassan, suggested instead that the
census should be conducted in 2017, two years to the
general elections .
Part of the statement read , “ I won’ t advise anyone to
conduct national census in 2018 . I said it before that
if we are not going to achieve it in 2017 , then we
should just forget it until after 2019 .
“ If you conduct census just before the elections ,
there will be so much pressure, crises and a lure for
people to manipulate the figures for political reasons ,
such that the agency cannot even cope with.
“ So , it is better for a fresh administration to conduct
this exercise from the beginning of that
administration when we do not have any pressure of
elections in sight .
“ Then we may have something that resembles
reality, but I can bet on it that if the census is
conducted in 2018, the outcome will be unreliable .
“ Seriously speaking , because I know who we are and
I know the kind of litigation, backlash and the
pressure that come with this kind of exercise and we
don’ t need that now to be candid .
“ We have so many challenges ; let ’ s empower the
agency to keep building on the blocks that it will
leverage upon in the future in order to conduct the
exercise but doing it in 2018, honestly, it is nothing I
would advocate. ”