National Population Commission (NPC) on Thursday disclosed that 2 million Nigerians will be recruited for the 2023 census exercise, noting that it has zero tolerance for corruption.
The Commission noted that it would consolidate the integrity of the census exercise, stressing that compromise would not be condoned.
According to the commission, its recruitment will be gender sensitive, disclosing that 40% of its adhoc staff in Ekiti will be Women.
The Federal Commissioner , representing Ekiti in NPC , Mr Ayodeji Ajayi, said this in Ado Ekiti, on Thursday, during a press conference to intimate the public on the proposed recruitment of adhoc staff that would undertake the exercise.
The former Ekiti State Head of Service, said: “The commission will recruit adhoc staff that will be in the neighbourhood of 2m across the country for this exercise, this includes staff of NPC and the adhoc staff that will be trained and other professionals.
“And any job seeking youth,who participated in the exercise and performed well will be given certificate by the commission to enhance his employability”.
Ajayi stated that the commission is targeting majorly workers in the state and federal civil services, as well as interested Nigerians, with proven integrity as adhoc staff, urging interested members to express their interests via 2023censusadhocrecruitment.nationalpopulation.gov.ng.
“Every enumeration area has been geo-coded that no staff can overlap. You can’t cross to other enumeration side to work with your gadgets. The time frame for you to work is also short that you can’t spend the entire day in a locality counting and once the button is pressed after counting, it is delivered in our Central Server .
“What had given rise to manipulation in the past is that papers were used, but we are using ICT gadgets. We have about 99% assurance that manipulation will be curtailed. Each staff will have a guarantor and if you do anything wrong, the guarantors and will be held responsible”.
He added; “To us in the commission, the quality of staff that will perform the census activities is very important. Therefore having good knowledge of the content document , the technique and the organisation of the census process is key to the success of the 2023 population and housing census.
“The President said he will leave a legacy of giving Nigeria workable population census and he is working the talk. He had instructed all security and government agencies that they should cooperate with us.
“While a good recruitment exercise will not by itself necessarily guarantee a successful census,a badly conducted recruitment process will inevitably lead to problems and increase the risk of unsuccessful census.
“The launching of the E-recruitment portal for the 2023 census marks the beginning of the online recruitment process, whereby Nigerians from all demography and gender can hook onto the website that will be provided by the commission to fill the online form and get themselves registered to be recruited.
“Teachers in primary, secondary and tertiary institutions are our primary target. Though, we have been using some lecturers in the university as professionals, but we need more, particularly specialists in Sociology, Statistics, Geography and Demography. University students, employed people ,job seekers and those that are ICT compliant can also apply”.
