February 1, 2022
Albert Baron Ansu
Sierra Leone midterm population census has been bedeviled by sabotage galore. There is only one way to explain this: somebody especially in the opposition frame of things has remained wary that it was an attempt by the government of President Julius Maada Bio to uncover the shoddy work of the census of 2015.
This assumption cannot be far from the truth; the data inherited from the opposition to constitute a census report was grossly inadequate. When the cartographic map was done based on the 2015 data the omission of data of localities were so palpable and evidentiary to inform even a fool that something needed to be done to fill the blank spaces. An international expert opinion was sought to have convinced the SLPP government that a mid-term census was of essence.
The issue of legality of the mid-term population census has been put to rest; albeit there are still those who would want to have mystical defacement of the statutory provision that stipulates that the Preexistent can mid-way in ten years make a proclamation for a census to be conducted for compelling reasons
It is therefore of no value to this article to dwell on that justification for the census. I am rather driving the point about the uniqueness of this census based on technological innovation of using tablets as opposed to the paper-centric nature of the previous ones from 1985, 2004 and 2015.
The tablets have inbuilt accuracy assurance of data as opposed to the forms enumerators used in the past. So the gesture of the Kenyans to have borrowed us those 20,000 plus tablets that have become subject criminal manipulation; some reported to have been stole by unscrupulous enumerators who even collected their entitlements and dodged away without doing the work. In the situation where we are supposed to return these tablets to the Kenyans, our failures to return all of them is going to amount to an embarrassment. We are expecting statics Sierra Leone to come out with statement on the roguery of some of the enumerators.
The crop of those enumerators that have cheated the process are more likely than not opposition partisans, who were recruited in good faith to embark on a national service devoid of no intention to embark on constituency gerrymandering.
For clearly the thrust of population and housing census was not meant to go for voters statistics in the age bracket of 18 and above but the wider scope of all and sundry to serve the need of planning for human capital development. The voter data set in the census constitute a miniature.
Kenyan provided these tablets to other countries in the context of south-south cooperation and I am sure that the unfortunate situation that has happened with these tablets could not be reported from the countries. Community and local leaders have blamed Statistics Sierra Leone that because they were left out in the recruitment of the men and women that were recruited and trained in the use of the data collecting tool this is why we are now faced with this embarrassment. This is where the accuracy of the data cannot be guaranteed. Statistics Sierra Leone must employ an investigation into this scandalous matter relative to the Kenyan data collecting and analyzing tablets.