The Chairman of the National Population Census, Nasir Kwarra, Thursday in Abuja, requested the release of the allocated N31 billion capital allocation, in the 2023 budget, for preparatory activities ahead of the exercise.

Kwara also requested President Bola Tinubu’s approval for an additional N225.2 billion to cover training and fieldwork allowances, retraining of trainers, and the conduct of a second-class Trial Census. He also pegged the total cost of the exercise at N546.72 billion.

He was at the State House to brief the President on the Implementation Status of the 2023 Population and Housing Census, where he requested the issuance of a proclamation for a new Census date later in 2022 or early 2024.

The President’s Special Adviser on Special Duties, Communications, and Strategy, Dele Alake, revealed this in a statement he signed on Thursday titled ‘Population Census: President Tinubu pledges support for NPC, calls for data integrity.’

The NPC Chairman noted that the Commission had trained 60,000 instructors who would further train enumerators and supervisors.