Do you know that if something is not urgently done Nigeria may lose ₦400 billion worth of equipment purchased in readiness for census in 2023?
Every country of the world periodically conducts census in order to know how much the population has grown.
This helps to adequately plan for the populace in terms of infrastructure and other social amenities.
In 2023, former president Muhammadu Buhari planned to conduct the first digital census in Nigeria.
He invested about ₦400 billion in technological equipment that would make the census process credible.
However, transition programmes in Nigeria did not allow the census programme hold.
The National Population Commission (NPC), had commissioned contractors to supply the needed equipment for the census.
Unfortunately, the NPC was not able to conduct the census.
However, the supplied census equipment have been acquiring dust, sitting in warehouses across the 36 states.
Technical evaluation shows that most of the equipment may go bad due to humidity and lack of use, as they may not have been stored in the best conditions.
Due to this fact, the equipment might have lost their durability and effectiveness before the need arises for them.
Devices like laptops and other handhelds malfunctions when stored in a humid environment on account of heat and poor operation.
Meanwhile, the NPC, is yet to complete payment for these supplied equipments which includes tablets, batteries, power-banks and first aid materials.
Some of the first aid materials could expire before any new census date is fixed.
Also, the motherboards inside the tablets could go bad if the humidity in the storage facilities exceeds a certain threshold.
What is the government doing about this?
