The Federal Commissioner of the National Population Commission in Kogi State, Prof. Habibat Isah, has given an assurance that no one would be able to hack into the commission’s server to be used for the May 3-5 population and housing census.
The commissioner said there had been several attempts by hackers to compromise the NPC server but they had all failed.
“As against lies and rumours that have been peddled, the NPC server has never been hacked because we have never rested and we won’t rest until the programme becomes successful.
“We at the NPC are fast learners; we quickly learned from the experience of the Independent National Electoral Commission, in the last election and we have put additional security measures in place that not even our staff can crack,” the don said at a press conference, tagged, ‘Journey So Far’ in Lokoja on Tuesday.
Isah said the server was one of the most important aspects of the census and the NPC understood the need to protect it from being hacked.
He added, “In the time past, censuses have been conducted using paper and pen but this time, the census will be conducted using Android devices such that once the information is got, it will go directly to the server.
“Apart from our actions against hackers and intruders, we have been able to conduct a series of training for different stakeholders of the commission, including the Federal Commissioners.
“The recent training for Federal Commissioners was held in Port Harcourt while the state directors and other officials of the commission are undergoing continuous training.”
The commission said the upcoming census would be a tool for national planning, adding that “no serious government is supposed to take census as a joke. Any serious-minded government should take the population and housing census as an issue of key interest.”
He also assured residents and citizens of Kogi that the census would be transparently conducted and alleyed fears of figures manipulation.
He added that no part of the state would be left out as the commission had procured speed boats to get to places like Ibaji and Bassa LGs that are surrounded by water.
He added that sensitive issues like religion, language and ethnicity had been removed from the templates because of crisis and clashes associated with them in some parts of the country.
Isah said the NPC leadership would be meeting with the Federal Government at the Federal Executive Council meeting to brief the executive arm of the government on the commission’s level of preparedness.