NATIONAL POPULATION CENSUS

Problems Associated with Conduct of Population Census

The problems associated with conduct of population census in Nigeria are numerous, and they include:

1. CENSUS IS AN EXPENSIVE EXERCISE: The conduct of population census is a huge exercise that required enormous finance, materials and human resources, there are times the fund available is not enough. For example, in 2006 population census, about 700,000 enumerators/officials were engaged in the exercise. These people were paid and supplied with various materials to carry out the exercise.

2. INFLATION AND FALSIFICATION OF POPULATION FIGURES: Population is a yardstick for revenue or resource allocation to the various states of the federation. Therefore, the size of each state and local government council in the country determined how much resources will be apportioned to it. As a result of these, various state and local governments tend to inflate the population figures of their areas in order to better their revenue; this is also caused by dishonesty on the part of enumerators.

3. LACK OF GOOD ROADS AND TRANSPORTATION NETWORKS: Most roads, especially in the rural areas are not accessible during the rainy season, these bad road situation prevent the census enumerators from getting access.