Awka
Anambra State Commissioner for Information, Sir Paul Nwosu has urged Journalists in the state to take the message of the importance of the upcoming National Head Count to the people of the state.
He said that Anambra people were not fully covered in the past versions of the exercise because they took the event with levity and did not accord it the seriousness it deserved.
According to him, this has made it possible for the people to be short-changed in the distribution of amenities.
Sir Nwosu made this known at a 1-Day capacity building workshop for Journalists, on ‘Effective Reporting of the 2023 Population and Housing Census’ at the Industrial Training Fund (ITF), Awka which was held on Tuesday.
It was organized by the National Population Commission (NPC).
The commissioner observed that it is only those captured and counted during the census that the government can provide for.
He said; “The government of Anambra State realizes that census/headcount is very important hence the support of the organization of a programme of this sort.
“Resources are very scarce and once the government at the center gets whatever number from the exercise then it plans with what was got.”
He, then, urged the participants to listen to the facilitators and be ready to take all information gathered in the training to the people of the state.
“We have also noticed that our people treated past National Census with levity because they are ignorant of the importance of the exercise.
“Other regions took it seriously, they did a lot of public enlightenment in their areas and today are well covered in the distribution of National amenities.
“We must change our people’s attitude through communication and enlightenment, and that is what you will be shown how to go about it in this training,” Nwosu noted.
While declaring the training open, the Federal Commissioner, National Population Commission, representing Anambra State, Mr. Chidi Ezeoke, said preparation is in top gear for the successful implementation of the 2023 exercise at the Federal level.
He emphasized that the Commission will no doubt need the support of all stakeholders to deliver to the country, credible and reliable data that can be used for sustainable development planning.
Ezeoke explained that the goal of the workshop is to share with the media the vision of the commission and to draw the support of Journalists to ensure broad-based national cooperation for the implementation of the activities of the commission.
He said, “Population and Housing Census is a national event and is the responsibility of Ndi-Anambra to participate by presenting themselves to be counted”.
The training had in attendance media persons drawn from the electronic, print, and blog media.
