The National Population Commission (NPC) in Anambra State has warned officers involved in the Enumeration Area Demarcation (EAD) against embarking on the exercise without the company of local guides.
Chidi Ezeoke, the Federal Commissioner representing the state, gave the admonition while flagging off the Phase 11 of EAD exercise consisting of Orumba North, Orumba South and Awka North Local Government areas of the state.
He said “to ensure the data and information provided to the demarcators were accurate and reliable, local guides who are responsible and familiar with the terrain should take part in the exercise
“We insisted that our host communities must provide us with sensible local guides who must be familiar with the terrain; not those who smoke Indian hemp and can abandon the officers in the field.
“We also appealed to them to take the security of both our personnel and materials seriously; provide accommodation for them and sensitize their people that our officers are not Boko Haram members.
“For our demarcators, we have cautioned them not to go to the field without a local guide not just for security reasons, but to ensure they don’t document wrong information, either over or under estimation of persons in each households” he said
Employ of retirees
Ezeoke further revealed that some freshly retired, but not tired staff of the Commission had been engaged as Community Interface Assistance (CIA) to boost the Commission’s mobilization and enlightenment efforts to ensure the community assume full ownership of the all-important project.
He added, “The job of the freshly retirees who are to interface between the Commission, the communities and other stakeholders are essential to smoothen the activities of the field functionaries.
“They will bring their experience to bear by ensuring that there is cooperation between field officers and the respondents for a rancor-free EAD and other census related activities.
“Necessary measures have also been put in place to ensure that field functionaries are properly kitted and trained to observe all COVID-19 protocols as prescribed by the Presidential Task Force (PTF) throughout the period of the exercise.”
Meanwhile, the State Director of NPC, Joachin Ulasi stated that a total of 18 teams of no fewer than 121 functionaries would be involved in the exercise, which he said was the last in the series of training for the demarcators and supervisors.
Emmanuel Ukoh
