Census: NPC trains journalists in Plateau

The National Population Commission (NPC) has trained journalists in Plateau ahead of the April 2023 census.

The NPC Federal Commissioner in the state, Mrs. Cecilia Dapoet, said on Monday in Jos that the workshop focused on effective ways that journalists could report and enlighten the public on the exercise.

Dapoet, represented by the state Director, NPC, Mr. Pam Deme, said that the media had an important responsibility to properly educate and enlighten Nigerians on the need to support the successful conduct of the census.

She said that the capacity building workshop for journalists in the state was important as the commission could not achieve the task alone.

“The aim is to train the journalists on effective ways to report and enlighten the public on the exercise.

“It is to equip the media on how to properly enlighten the public on the difference between election and census and improve on the quality of their content,” he said.

Dapoet said the training would also neutralise the negative prejudices and misrepresentation about census among Nigerians.

Deme, in a paper on: “Processes and Methodology of the 2023 Population Census”, said that the 2023 population and housing census would leverage full digital methodology through mobile application devices.

He said that there was a shift in the method of census-taking which implied that a change on how data on population and housing information were to be captured.

The state chairman of Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Mr. Paul Jatau, lauded the commission for the workshop.

He pledged on behalf of the journalists to give the exercise accurate reportage.

Similarly, the state chairperson of Nigeria Association of Women Journalists (NAWOJ), Mrs. Nene Dung, urged government to use the data on women, children and the vulnerable to plan for their welfare and inclusiveness in governance.

Dung regretted that women were always sidelined in spite of representing a larger percentage of the population and hoped that the outcome of the census would lead to the desired change.