Benue State Governor; Samuel Ortom has asked the federal government to postpone the proposed National Population Census, which is set to take place in May 2023.
Ortom made the announcement during a meeting with a delegation from the Middle Belt Forum led by its President, Dr Bitrus Pogu, in Makurdi, the state capital, on Wednesday.
The Governor, who claimed that the census was being conducted with a hidden objective, asked the FG to postpone the process till the internally displaced persons, or IDPs, returned to their homes.
He said, “The FG should suspend the issue of the census because it looks like the proposed census is coming with an agenda.
“So until they are able to restore security and all our IDPs return to their ancestral homes to give all of them opportunities to be counted in their homes of birth. Because I understand from the National Population Commission that those to be counted must be counted in their localities”.
With thousands of deaths within a year, the state has the worst herdsmen the
More than two million people reside in IDP camps spread out over the state of Benue. Invading one of the IDPs’ camps just one week prior, the infamous killer herdsmen massacred at least 35 people.