Jonathan approves N600 billion for demographic database – NPC Chairman

The Chairman of the National Population Commission (NPC), Eze Odimegwu on Wednesday announced the approval of the sum of N600 billion by the Federal Government to establish a centralized demographic database for the country.

Addressing participants from the Defence Intelligence School in Abuja, Mr Odimegwu said that the funds will help the agency provide relevant data to Nigerians for a period of five years in the areas of health, national security and agriculture.

“We will use cutting-edge technology in the world to do everything we do; the best in class competencies, we are looking for the brightest and the best and we have to fully resource our strategy,” he said.

“The president actually approved close to N600 billion for NPC for five years to review all the things we want to do. And if you think this N600 billion is big, if all the scattered places they are doing demographic now, they spend trillions of trillions of naira every year and yet the job is not done. So when we consolidate it and do it in five years, it is still cheap for the country. The president said so and he was happy we came to give him that quality of presentation.

“So in our systems, we want to be open in all what we do. We want to hire the best people to do it and we want our vision, budget and strategy to drive our budgeting,” the NPC Chairman said.

On his part, the course coordinator from the school, Wing Commander Idris Hassan stressed the need for improving the knowledge base of its participants through the provision of adequate data for a proper understanding of how to ensure national security.