Labor Party Presidential candidate in the last election, Peter Obi, and Benue State Governor have lauded President Muhammadu Buhari for postponing the national census.
President Muhammadu Buhari on Saturday approved the postponement of the 2023 National Population and Housing Census earlier scheduled for between May 3 and May 7.
The exercise was postponed to a date to be determined by the incoming administration.
Reacting, Peter Obi said the postponement was a welcome development.
“FGN’s decision to postpone the 2023 Population and Housing Census, scheduled for 3-7 May 2023, to a date to be determined by the incoming Administration is a propitious and welcome development. National Census is a critical development and nation-building tool.
“Even though Nigeria is long overdue for a census, conducting one requires proper planning and diligence to ensure the sanctity of the results; the efficacy of the data gathered therefrom, as well as their utility in driving national development goals.
“Our living standards and growing national housing deficits. It is hoped that when eventually the census is conducted, it will serve as confidence-building measures instead of being fraught with the usual controversy,” he tweeted.
Similarly, Ortom who had on April 13, called on the Federal Government to postpone the planned census until adequate security was guaranteed in the country commended Buhari in a statement signed by his Special Adviser on Media and Publicity, Mr Terver Akase on Saturday in Makurdi.
The governor specifically stated that conducting the census will amount to injustice and deprivation of millions of Nigerians who have been displaced from their ancestral homes and are living in the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps in the state and other parts of the country.
“I want to say that the FG should suspend the issue of the census because it looks like the proposed census is coming with an agenda.
“So, until they are able to restore security and all our IDPs go back to their ancestral lands to give all of them opportunities to be counted in their homes of birth,” he said.
He further stated that he understood from the National Population Commission that those to be counted must be counted in their localities.
He said that with the postponement of the census now approved by Buhari, the Federal government should ensure that Nigerians whose communities had been taken over by bandits and armed herders regained their lands and returned home.
He said the lives and well being of the people must be placed
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