✅ By Stanley Nwosu ✍️
As Nigeria struggles with the escalating impacts of climate change, the urgency for a timely Population and Housing Census has never been clearer. This crucial national census exercise aims to generate reliable, verifiable, and up-to-date data essential for assessing the ramifications of climate change on the lives of Nigerians. With the country facing critical environmental, economic, and social challenges due to climate change, immediate action is imperative to safeguard its future.
Nigeria is increasingly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, which manifest in extreme weather events like flooding, erosion, desertification, and air pollution. These challenges strain the nation’s resources, exacerbating food insecurity, health crises, and infrastructure damage. As communities are displaced, people migrate in search of greener pastures and safer heaven, leading to urban overcrowding and social tensions rise, which places additional pressure on agricultural land. Rapid population growth and migration lead to overutilization of land, resulting in soil degradation and diminished agricultural productivity.
One thing is clear: we no longer live in a normal world. With global ice melting very rapidly and increasing sea levels worldwide, flooding of coastal cities becomes inevitable. In Nigeria no one could explain the type of extended rainy season with the resultant flooding we experienced last year.
The upcoming biometric census presents a unique opportunity to gather comprehensive data that can evaluate the impacts of climate change on livelihoods and identify groups that are displaced and those more vulnerable to climate change, such as low-income households, the elderly and people living in high-risk areas. With the data, stakeholders can better understand and address the repercussions of a changing climate.
The census will include questions designed to gauge public awareness of climate change and collect firsthand accounts of recent climatic events. Respondents will provide insights into changing weather patterns, variations in rainfall, crop yield reductions, reduction in seasonal availability of water over extended period, increase in bad air quality, increase in flooding and the increasing prevalence of health issues linked to environmental degradation.
Equipped with this data, the National Population Commission (NPC) aims to analyze how climate events affect communities. Questions will explore the movement of people due to climate impacts, shifts in income sources, food security challenges, water scarcity and changes in fuel usage.
There will also be questions on waste management to evaluate carbon footprints and enhance waste management practices, aligning with Nigeria’s Nationally Determined Contributions targets and UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs 11 and 12).
Leveraging geospatial data generated from the Enumeration Area Demarcation (EAD) which needs to be updated and completed with household and person information during the forthcoming census, the NPC can conduct hotspot analyses to identify areas where populations are more likely to be affected by climate change, such as flood-prone regions.
Recent flooding that ravaged some parts of Maiduguri and its environs demonstrated the power of this data when the NPC superimposed the geospatial building dataset over the flood zone areas and discovered the actual number of buildings with their precise geo-locations and attributes as well as other infrastructure affected by flood. NPC even went further to reveal the status of the affected buildings – privately owned and those owned by the government. This provided the Borno State Government and development organizations with reliable and verifiable data for informed policies and targeted interventions.
If the next census had been conducted by then, NPC would have gone beyond providing the actual number of affected buildings to providing accurate information on households and those residing or working in those affected buildings. The census data will also guide informed policymaking and targeted interventions in areas and situations impacted by climate change.
The integration of census data with climate metrics will enrich our understanding of weather patterns, temperature trends, and extreme weather events. This information is crucial for addressing issues like drought, floods, and desertification.
Moreover, it is gratifying to note that the NPC is committed to greening the upcoming census process and transform the traditional census-taking approach into a more sustainable and environmentally friendly exercise. It plans to leverage digital technologies to make the census largely paperless, reducing the environmental impact of paper waste as well as adopt digital data transmission methods to minimize emissions that would have resulted from physical transportation.
There is no doubt that by combining census with climate data, government, researchers and policymakers can gain insights into the socio-economic impacts of climate change on different populations in Nigeria, leading to more effective adaptation and mitigation strategies.
The Federal Government must act decisively to fix the date for the first biometric Population and Housing Census, ensuring the collection of high-precision, georeferenced population data. This data will be vital for evidence-based assessments of climate change impacts and for formulating responsive policies.
The time to act is now. Nigeria’s future depends on our ability to accurately measure and respond to the challenges posed by climate change. Let’s count on change for a sustainable future.
~© Stanley Onyeka Nwosu, Communication Strategist, Public Affairs Analyst, Political Economist, and Development Expert, currently serves as the NPC Website and Social Media Manager in Abuja. He can be reached at stanleynwosu.npc@gmail.com
