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.

The bill was sponsored by Rep. Babajimi Benson(APC-Lagos), and obtained by Vanguard on Tuesday.

The Bill is entitled: “An Act to Alter the Provisions of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 to Specify the time Frame for the Conduct of National Population Census”.

The Bill seeks to alter section 213 of the Constitution, “by inserting after subsection 5, a new subsection 6 to read that “The National Population Commission, shall conduct a national population census, every ten years after publication by the President of a population census report in the official gazette of the government of the Federation”.

The Bill adds that the agency, will ” undertake enumeration of the population every ten years through sample surveys, censuses or otherwise”.

The last Population Census in Nigeria was conducted in March 2006, amid controversies.

The last headcount was based on the First Census of 1962, under an independent Nigeria.

Since the last population estimate, 14 years ago, the country is yet to conduct another one, relying instead, on tentative population figures, for the purposes of planning and wealth distribution.

Adopting the motion, the House urged the National Population Commission to come up with a feasible timetable “for the conduct of the census not later than year 2020.”

The House also urged the Federal Government to “provide necessary logistics for the conduct of a national census in 2020 as a way of ending the uncertainties surrounding Nigeria’s actual population.”

The lawmakers also resolved to set up an ad hoc committee to liaise with the NPC, the Federal Ministry of Finance, Budget and Planning; and the National Bureau of Statistics “to work out modalities on how to conduct a census in 2020 and to liaise with other foreign donors such as the UNFPA, EU, USAID, UNESCO and AU for necessary support for the exercise.”

Moving the motion, Ademorin Kuye, stated that a population census was an important national assignment because its figures were critical for national planning and it was for this reason, among others, that most countries of the world carry out this exercise once every 10 years.

Kuye pointed out that without a census and accurate data of the number of people in a country, no government can provide adequately for its citizens as the government requires data to know the number of children being born, the number of schools and hospitals that will be needed, how many workers are in a given town and how many foreigners are in the country, for proper provision of infrastructural facilities.

The lawmaker said, “Most times, Nigeria’s population is predicated on projected figures provided by foreign organisations like the United Nations, thus making planning extremely difficult in the absence of a population census, which the NPC would have been ready to conduct every 10 years as is obtainable in other countries, but it is now left to the whims and caprices of the government.

“The House is concerned that the last national census was conducted in 2006 and until it becomes mandatory to conduct census at given intervals like elections, Nigeria will continue to have delays in organising national census.

“The House is further aware of the extreme importance of conducting another census to ascertain the country’s actual population in order to do away with projected figures, a development that will enable the government to plan better for the citizens. The House is worried that if adequate measures are not put in place where population census is conducted periodically at least once every 10 years, Nigeria will be lacking in the statistical data of its citizenry either politically or economically.”

The lawmaker also pointed out that lack of accurate data on the population of Nigeria had been affecting national planning and development at all levels.