Yoruba socio-political group Afenifere wants the federal government to cancel the May 3 population census.
Afenifere’s secretary general, Sola Ebiseni, called the exercise’s timing “inauspicious” and “impossible in credible implementation” on Thursday.
Ebiseni claimed, “citizens are still enraged and saddened by the trauma of violence and brigandage during the elections”.
“There is no compelling reason why the census must be undertaken by the outgoing Buhari government and urges for all procedures and preparations to be terminated immediately. “Afenifere decries the most insensitive expenditure of almost N100 billion on this wasted endeavour as disgraceful and an economic transgression,” the statement says. “Afenifere bemoans the unfathomable determination of the Buhari government in holding the 2023 national census notwithstanding concrete conditions that render such a crucial national exercise most inauspicious in scheduling and unachievable in genuine implementation.
“In the August 2022 conference, we strongly urged against the census, which we stated could not reasonably place in the same year as a general election, in light of the significance of credible exercise.
“Other well-meaning personalities and institutions, including the UNFPA resident representative in Nigeria who at another conference in PortHarcourt on the 26th-29th March 2023 and most recently the Methodist Church Nigeria, Diocese of Calabar have all raised concerns on the possibility of reasonable and genuine participation in a proper headcount in the current mood of the nation.
“That Afenifere is particularly bemused that government expects participation in headcount by citizens still incensed and troubled by the trauma of violence and brigandage of the elections or by those in IDP camps within their country whose ancestral homes terrorists in occupation will now be counted as new indigenes.
“That all factors considered, including its inability to supervise a transparent electoral process, and a lesser headcount exercise, the integrity deficiency of this administration is abysmally compounded in conducting census in which partisan disputes in Nigeria are often at the level of communities, states, and ethnic nationalities having been politicised over time”.
The 2023 population census began on May 3 and ended two days later, the federal government said in March.
