..figure shows increase of eight million within two years
The National Population Commission(NPC) on Tuesday disclosed that the population of Nigeria is now estimated at 206 million.
The NPC’s Chairman, Nasir Kwarra, disclosed this at a press conference on the commencement of the next Enumeration Area Demarcation in Abuja.
The disclosure comes exactly two years after the NPC estimated the country’s population at 198 million.
The NPC boss said since Nigeria had not been able to hold a census in the last 14 years, it would be difficult to know the exact population of the country.
He said, “In the absence of an actual census, we formally do projections and we have all along been doing our projections and we estimate that as of 2020, the estimated population of Nigeria is 206 million.”
Kwarra said President Muhammadu Buhari has the sole right to announce the next census, adding that he was certain that the President would do the needful soon.
While announcing the commencement of the Enumeration Area Demarcation exercise, he stated that about 260 local government areas out of the 774 in the country had been fully demarcated.
He disclosed that the 11th phase of the exercise would begin on December 9, 2020, and end on January 20, 2021.
Kwarra explained that the EAD exercise is not the enumeration of persons living in the country but a preparatory exercise before the census.
He said the NPC would be assisting the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to create digitized maps of INEC registration areas for the first time as part of the EAD. He said this collaboration would positively affect future elections.
The NPC chairman further stated, “It is important to state that the latest technology is being deployed for this EAD exercise, including the use of very high-resolution satellite imageries as the base map, the use of GPS for georeferencing and the use of GIS for data management.
“Also, personal data assistants (handheld devices/tablets) that include computer software for population estimation are being used for data capture.”
