Latest NPC News 2024 With Census
Latest NPC News 2024 With Census
NPC News 2024: A court mandates that NPC reveal the specific costs associated with the canceled census. The National Population Commission was given a seven-day deadline by a Federal High Court in Abuja on Thursday to reveal the specific expenses incurred during the postponed 2023 Population Census.
The census was originally supposed to take place in 2022, however, it was eventually moved to 2023.
A few days before he left office, however, former President Muhammadu Buhari announced that he would enable President Bola Tinubu to set new dates for the headcount and halted the exercise indefinitely.
November 2024 is the new date for the census.
In June 2023, the NPC said that N200 billion had been spent on getting ready to perform the population and housing census that had been postponed until 2023.
Through a Freedom of Information Act request, a lawyer from Abuja named Opatola Victor had taken the commission to court when the NPC declined to give the specifics of the funds utilized for the halted process.
Victor claimed in the lawsuit titled FHC/ABJ/CS/ 503/2023 that the commission had violated his rights under Section 4 of the FOI Act 2012 by refusing to provide him with the record of expenditures for the postponed population census, among other records.
Then, by the FOI Act, he requested an order of mandamus from the court directing the population commission to provide him with the required documents for the postponed 2023 population census.
In addition, he asked for N500,000 in damages for NPC’s infringement of his rights.
Justice Inyang Ekwo rejected the defendant’s argument in his ruling that the plaintiff’s records were not provided because of bureaucracy or the executive chairman’s absence.
The NPC claimed that the requested material was classified, but the judge dismissed this claim.
According to his interpretation of what constitutes classified information, the population census had nothing to do with secrecy.
The judge determined that the NPC had committed improper, unlawful, and unconstitutional acts when it refused to provide the lawyer’s request on March 30, 2023, for the information or records of expenditure related to the canceled census.
“It was a flagrant violation of the plaintiff’s right as enshrined in Section 4 of the FOI Act that the commission refused to provide the suit with details on the organizations that supplied due diligence report on the equipment that was to be deployed for the ill-fated census,” Ekwo stated.
“This is a formal order directing the NPC, its employees, agents, privies, and officials to provide the plaintiff with thorough and in-depth information regarding the Quality Test Assurance Report on the equipment and technology to be used for the delayed 2023 population census.”
However, he refused to grant the plaintiff’s requested N500,000 as specified in the lawsuit.
