More than three years after Nigeria’s planned national population and housing census was postponed, an analysis by The PUNCH has shown that the Federal Government appropriated at least N219.17bn for the census and related preparatory activities between 2021 and 2026.
The analysis further learnt that at least N79.08bn was released for census-related payments over part of the period, according to transaction records available on GovSpend, a civic tech platform tracking public expenditure.
The findings show the scale of public resources committed to preparations for a census that is yet to take place, while also highlighting the distinction between budget appropriations, payment transactions and official releases.
A review of the Appropriation Acts from 2021 to 2026 from the Budget Office of the Federation showed that the National Population Commission received progressively larger allocations as preparations intensified ahead of the planned 2023 digital census before funding dropped sharply following its postponement.
The review also showed that the appropriations comprised both direct allocations for the National Population and Housing Census and funding for supporting activities such as field demarcation, census publicity, staff training, digital mapping, data management systems, enumeration area development, research and monitoring.
Separate payment records extracted from GovSpend indicate that thousands of transactions were processed for census-related contracts, including procurement of personal digital assistants, cloud infrastructure, logistics, digital mapping, printing of manuals, publicity materials and other preparatory activities.
However, the payment records available on the platform may not represent the government’s complete release history for the exercise.
The analysis by The PUNCH showed that census-related appropriations stood at about N4.61bn in 2021. The following year, the amount surged almost 39-fold to N180.22bn as the Federal Government prepared for what would have been Nigeria’s first fully digital population census.
That represented an increase of about N175.61bn or 3,806 per cent over the previous year. The bulk of the 2022 provision came from the N177.33bn appropriated specifically for the National Population and Housing Census.
Beyond the main census allocation, the budget also contained N1.14bn for field demarcation across the 774 local government areas, N665m for a stakeholders’ conference on the census instrument, N285m for the second pretest, N237.5m for the National Population Data Bank and database management system, N142.5m for census publicity and advocacy, N114m for intercensal population activities and N95m for Census in Schools.
Other allocations covered training of enumerators, development of small-area databases, monitoring and evaluation, census research, cartographic materials and legal work relating to previous census objections.
The momentum continued into 2023, although the funding profile changed. The Appropriation Act provided N30bn for “Outstanding Activities for the 2023 Population and Housing Census.”
When the related census projects contained in the NPC capital budget were added, total census-related appropriations for the year amounted to about N30.49bn.
Although this represented continued support for the exercise, it was N149.73bn lower than the previous year’s N180.22bn, translating to an 83.08 per cent decline as the planned census approached amid growing uncertainty.
Funding continued to shrink after the exercise was postponed. The former president, late Muhammadu Buhari, approved the postponement of the 2023 Population and Housing Census, earlier scheduled for May 3-7, 2023, indefinitely, passing the baton to the next administration.
The 2023 census was shelved due to financial constraints and the transition to a new administration, leaving much of the groundwork incomplete as Buhari exited office.
In 2024, census-related appropriations fell to about N875.5m, representing another year-on-year decline of N29.61bn or 97.13 per cent. The direct allocation for the National Population and Housing Census itself dropped from N30bn in 2023 to N693.3m in 2024.
The decline reflected the government’s decision to retain only limited funding for census readiness while awaiting a fresh policy direction.
Recall that in 2025, the former NPC Chairman Nasir Kwarra submitted a N942bn census budget to the President, which Bola Tinubu rejected, prompting calls for significant cost reductions.
Nevertheless, in 2025, appropriations increased modestly to N1.76bn, representing a rise of N885.39m or 101.12 per cent over the previous year. The increase was driven largely by higher allocations for census publicity, annual population census day, legal activities and database management, although the direct census allocation stood at only N1.1bn.
However, the upward movement proved temporary. The 2026 Appropriation Act reduced census-related funding to approximately N1.23bn, representing a decline of N529.39m or about 30.09 per cent from 2025.
The direct allocation for the census was also reduced by N330m from N1.1bn in 2025 to N770m in 2026. Overall, the six-year appropriations amounted to approximately N219.17bn.
However, transaction-level data obtained from GovSpend and reviewed by The PUNCH identified N69.32bn in census-related transactions during 2022 and another N9.76bn in 2023, bringing the total identifiable payments to N79.08bn.
The records did not contain identifiable census-related transactions for 2021, 2024, 2025 or 2026. The payments covered procurement of digital equipment, cloud infrastructure, mapping technology, logistics, census manuals, publicity materials, recruitment systems, branded items and operational support.
Among the largest transactions were multiple payments relating to the procurement of personal digital assistants, which formed the backbone of the planned digital enumeration.
The records also showed payments for Microsoft Azure cloud infrastructure, digital census mapping, housing listing applications, logistics for movement of census materials across states, printing of census manuals, posters and flyers, production of census publicity materials and support for census operations.
While the transaction records provide insight into how funds were utilised, they may not capture the total amount released by the government.
At a press briefing in Abuja in June 2023, a former Director of Public Affairs at the NPC, Dr Isiaka Yahaya, explained that the over N200bn reportedly spent on the 2023 population and housing census covers the total cost of preparation since 2014.
He said, “Consistent with global practice and inspired by an unswerving commitment to positively rewrite the history of census in Nigeria, the Commission opted to conduct a digital census deploying technology on a massive scale.
“In a country struggling with an acute infrastructural deficit, this massive undertaking cannot come cheap but at a huge cost. Yes, it is true that N200bn has been spent on preparations for the 2023 census so far.
“However, this fund was not expended in the last few weeks, months or years but rather since 2014 when preparations for the 2023 census actually began. Indeed, part of the N200bn was expended before the coming of the present Commission, which was inaugurated twice between 2018 and 2020 and even before the inception of the Buhari administration.”
The clarification suggests that the N79.08bn identified in the GovSpend extract should not be viewed as the complete value of releases or expenditure on the census but rather as the value of identifiable payment transactions contained in the dataset reviewed by The PUNCH.
The postponement of the census also changed the pattern of government spending. While 2022 focused largely on financing the nationwide enumeration itself, the budgets from 2024 onwards shifted towards maintaining institutional readiness by funding publicity, database management, research, legal matters, monitoring, and other preparatory activities, rather than financing an actual headcount.
The delay means Nigeria continues to rely on figures from the 2006 Population and Housing Census, nearly two decades after the country’s last official count.
Although President Bola Tinubu has repeatedly expressed support for conducting a new census and inaugurated a committee to review the exercise, no date has been announced.
Former Kano State Governor, Rabiu Kwankwaso, recently called on the Federal Government to conduct a credible, transparent and technology-driven national population and housing census without further delay.
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