The National Population Census has attributed the controversies surrounding past census results of Lagos State to inaccurate data and the migration of residents back to their states of origin during the exercise.
The State Federal Commissioner, NPC, Bimbola Salu-Hundeyin, said this at a capacity-building workshop for staff members of the commission and community mobilisation officers of the National Orientation Agency in Lagos on Tuesday.
She said was no need for residents to move out of the state, as a provision had been made by the commission to capture their state of origin.
She said, “Lagos State is the nerve centre of Nigeria and it is densely and thickly populated. But it has always complained of being undercounted, and this is because there is no accurate data.
Another reason we do not have accurate data apart from Lagos accusing the commission is that, during the census, a lot of residents who are non-indigenes move out of the state to where they come from because Nigerians have been made to believe that the more your state is, the more your allocation.
“But I want to announce to us that there is no need for census migration because it has been made illegal. If you are caught moving and it is to be counted elsewhere, there is a law now against it and the person will be punished. Secondly, there is no need for that this time because we have included the state you come from in our questionnaire. That was not there before. These are factors that have affected the results of Lagos.”
The state Director of NOA, Waheed Ishola, said the essence of the collaboration was to ensure a credible exercise.