Before to the upcoming population and housing census, the National Population Commission claimed it had put in place safeguards against all kinds of fraud.

The commission further emphasized that residents who reside outside of their home states are not need to travel there in order to participate in the exercise.

It said that persons would be counted where they lived.

The spokesperson for the commission, Isiaka Yahaya, said this in an interview with our correspondent on Monday.

He said,”People should stay where they are, to be counted. They are not to move to their states of origin. It is totally against the essence of the census. You have to be counted where you reside because that’s where you enjoy the social facilities like education and health, among others.

“Apart from this, when the time comes for people to be provided with infrastructure and other things you will not allow the planners to have accurate figures.  People are not to move.”

On measures to check malpractices, the NPC spokesman added: “This is a de facto census. We are asking practical questions about those who are living, not those who are yet to be born. We have not trained our enumerator to count people who are not yet born. We have a system in place to guard against all the malpractices that we have envisaged.

“Also, people can only be counted in their houses.  This is to discourage people from moving from one place to another after being counted. You can only be counted in one place. There’s will nothing to lie about. When we get to your house, the enumerators would see whatever you say you have and we are not asking for the owner of the house, why will anybody lie?”

Yahaya claimed that the commission’s enumerator recruitment procedure was still ongoing.