The Governor of Osun State, Ademola Adeleke, has inaugurated an inter-ministerial committee that would ensure that the state was well represented in the forthcoming 2023 National Population and Housing Census.
The Secretary to the State Government, Teslim Igbalaye, who inaugurated the committee on behalf of Adeleke on Monday in Osogbo, stated that all the relevant agencies would be involved in the planning and execution of the census to ensure success.
Adeleke who noted that Osun was under-represented in the figures published for the 1991 National Population Census, said the committee was put together to ensure that facts and figures about the state were correctly compiled during the exercise.
A statement by the spokesperson to the governor, Olawale Rasheed, quoting Adeleke further read in parts,
“I wish to declare that the need to take this step by the government is underscored by the fact that there are clear indications that our dear state was under-represented in the figures published for the 1991 National Population Census.
“This was challenged at the Census Tribunal, and the needful was done eventually, but the repeat of that should not be allowed to happen in the forthcoming exercise.”
In his remarks, the Statistician General, Bureau of Statistics in the state, Abiodun Ijidele, who doubles as the secretary of the committee commended the State Government for the proactive steps to ensure that the outcome of the 2023 census reflects the actual number of people living in the state.