By Chinwe Imo-Eze Onwosi
The National Population Commission, NPC, in Ebonyi State, on Friday, unveiled the Ebonyi compendium of localities ahead of the 2023 population and housing census.
The commission presented the compendium at a two-day state level workshop on compendium of localities held at Osborne La palm hotel in Abakaliki, the Ebonyi State capital.
The objective of the “State Compendium of Localities” workshop, in collaboration with stakeholders, according to the Federal NPC, Commissioner, Darlington Okereke is to display all the localities demarcated during the Enumeration Area Demarcation, EAD, on local government area basis showing the coverage and location on interactive maps.
Darlington explained that the localities after due presentation and validation by stakeholders from the 13 local government areas of the state will be compiled into a national compendium with requisite parameters including locality name, location, locality type, and locality classification among others.
He said: “The compilation presented to stakeholders from the 13 Local Government Area of Ebonyi and the soft copies will also be given to the Local Government Chairmen.
“The localities, after due presentation and validation by Stakeholders, will be compiled into a National Compendium with the following parameters:
“Names of localities taking into consideration the right spellings and location: Centroid Coordinates of Populated locality area will be appended.
“Locality type: Tertiary, Secondary, Primary, and Sub primary local types. Locality Classification: A six strata of Urban/Rural Spectrum of locality will be appended according to a ‘Fact Analysis’ done by the Cartography department,” he said.
The Federal commissioner stressed the need to avoid fragmentation of localities for the head count.
According to him, fragmentation of Localities may hinder the rapid development of a Local Government Area as major developmental intervention programmes by Government/NGOs work along the path of population.isclosed that the compendium of localities which will be presented to the President before the 2023 population and housing census, will be approved with the consensus of stakeholders as the gazetteer of place names for the country.
He implored all participants at the workshop including sister agencies, to work with the commission to achieve an excellent result that will add more value to the socio-economic development of Ebonyi State in particular and the nation as a whole.
In her remark, the Director of NPC in Ebonyi, Mrs Julia Manyike, noted that preparation for the first ever digital census to be conducted has passed through a lot of processes, which include enumeration area demarcation.
“Others are: Census pretest, trial census, post enumeration survey amongst others. I commended the federal and state governments for ensuring that all machineries and manpower needed for the exercise are put in place,” she added.
Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affair, Ebonyi, Mr Danatus Njoku commended NPC for their efforts to achieve successful conduct of 2023 census.
