The National Population Commission, NPC, has said fair and transparent hiring of personnel is crucial to accurate and reliable population and housing census 2023.
Federal Commissioner incharge of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Joseph Shazin Kwali, stated this at a press conference in Abuja.
Kwali said there will be training for officers from states to local government level, adding that applicants in difficult terrains with no network coverage can apply.
Recall that the commission, on 28 October 2022, launched its 2023 Census e-recruitment portal and said it is targeting 20 million applications across the country.
Speaking on the category of staff, he said field staff that will be needed include facilitators, training centre administrators, Monitoring and evaluation officers, data quality managers, data quality assistants, supervisors and enumerators.
Kwali stated that the number of functionaries to be recruited in each category will depend on the number of available vacancies in each State, which will be derived largely from the total number of Enumeration Areas, EA, in the States.
He said to ensure a fair, efficient and transparent recruitment selection process, the Federal Commissioner will, constitute a Local Government Area Recruitment Team, LRRT, which will comprise of 3 persons; the Comptrollers, Chairperson, one NPC staff who has NPC file number, as Desk officer/Secretariat, and Local Government Official.
Others include the State Recruitment Review Team, SRRT, who are already profiled, are to train the Local Government Area Recruitment Team, LRRT, in conjunction with officers that will be sent from the headquarters.
He assured that the Local Government Recruitment Team will work to ensure that prospective applicants in hard-to-reach areas, difficult terrains and areas with no network coverage have the opportunity to apply to serve as census functionaries and are appropriately accommodated on the recruitment portal.
The Headquarters Recruitment Team, HRT, in conjunction with State Recruitment Review Team, SRRT, will train the Local Government Area Recruitment Team and monitor the recruitment exercise in the LGAs.
Kwali expressed the commission’s commitment towards assuring Nigerians that advertisement requesting for application will be placed on national print and electronic media, as well as the commission’s dedicated website and social media platforms.
He said “to us in the Commission, the quality of staff that will perform the census activities are very important.
“Therefore, having good knowledge of the content of the census document, the technique and the organisation of the census process is key to the success of the 2023 Population and Housing Census.
“The quality of the recruitment process will reflect on the quality of the data to be collected and ultimately the success of the 2023 census. While a good recruitment exercise will not by itself necessarily guarantee a successful census, a badly conducted recruitment process will inevitably lead to problems and increase. The risk of an unsuccessful census.