The National Population Commission (NPC) on Wednesday trained Enugu journalists on effective reportage of the forthcoming National Census.
The training, titled “Capacity-Building Workshop For Journalists On Effective Reporting For 2023 Population and Housing Census”, had 30 media houses in attendance.
It was aimed at training the media on those processes and methodologies that would be employed during the 2023 National Population and Housing Census.
Declaring the workshop open, Mr Ejike Ezeh, the Federal Commissioner, NPC, Enugu, said the forthcoming census scheduled to take place between March and April, 2023 was going to be the digital one.
He said the commission deemed it necessary to invite the press to train them on those processes, procedures and methodologies required for the exercise.
Ezeh said: “Press being a very vital partner in progress towards the census, we deemed it very important to sit with them and try to understand ourselves.
“As far as information is concerned, press is the gateway of disseminating it.
“So, the commission organise the capacity building workshop to make them understand some of the methodologies and processes on the issues involved”.
The federal commissioner added that similar training was going on across the 36 states of the federation, including FCT.
“Where there are gaps and issues, press should let us know that is why, we have 30 of them and other institutional bodies here,” he said.
Presenting a paper on the Processes and Methodology for the 2023 Population and Housing Census, the NPC Officer in-charge of Enugu North Council Area, Mr Alexander Mkpume, said the commission had mapped out demarcation areas for the success of the census.
Mkpume said NPC had employed hybrid softwares for the census, adding that the pretest and mini census conducted in some selected areas showed they were of high quality.
He described the 2023 census as a very special one as every resident of Nigeria would be counted irrespective of where they are residing, including the mentally changed ones.
Earlier, the Resource Person, Mr Abuchi Anueyiagu, charged the media to ensure that people were not afraid of being enumerated through their reportage.
He noted that we are in the era of social media and as such, media should avoid fake news or giving out false information to the public.
According to him, false information should not be part of media content but they should verify information before publication.
“Avoid publishing census results not obtained from the right source while the NPC should try to provide media with the necessary information,” Anueyiagu advised. (NAN)
