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The Vice Chancellor, Plateau State University Bokkos, Prof. Matur Malau Bernard says the National Population Census is a veritable tool for enhancing planning for both the development and security of any Nation.

Professor Matur was speaking when he received the representative of the Federal Commissioner, National Population Commission, Mrs Priscilla Jaggu who led other officials of the Commission including the Comptroller, Bokkos Local Government Area, Mrs Jennifer Mafulul on a courtesy call to solicit for his understanding and cooperation for the success of the exercise in the University, said lack of proper planning and poor deployment of scarce resources as a result of inadequate census figures has negated the socio-economic development of the Country.

While promising to release some Students of the University to participate as ad-hoc Staff during the exercise as part of their service to humanity, Prof. Matur called on the National Population Commission to ensure that the welfare and security of the Students that will be involved is well taken care of throughout the exercise in addition to providing them with adequate means of identification and certification for clearance by the University.

He also urged the National Population Commission to ensure that they exhibit transparency in the conduct of the exercise to make it credible and acceptable to Nigerians.

In her remarks, representative of the Federal Commissioner, National Population Commission, Mrs Priscilla Jaggu said they were in the University to bring it up to speed with the processes and procedures of the National Population Census and to solicit for collaboration with the Institution as a major Stakeholder and as an Institutional Household.
She said the Commission has already undertaken the first and second phases of enumeration area demarcation exercise and the trial census which involved the digital test of the census equipment with successful outcomes.

According to Mrs Jaggu, series of trainings for its workforce including digital Managers, Supervisors and Enumerators on how to use the sensitive equipment that will be deployed have been successfully undertaken.
She said majority of the ad-hoc staff who will be engaged for the exercise are undergraduates of universities and other Tertiary institutions who are computer literate.
According to the representative of the Federal Commissioner, the questionnaire for the exercise will be devoid of political, tribal or ethnic sentiments but will be nationalistic in outlook.


John K.Agam
Public Relations Officer.