Actor and socialite Yhemo Lee from Nigeria has responded to claims that the Federal Government will need N869 billion to conduct the nation’s census.

Clement Agba, the state minister of finance and national planning, said this on March 6 at a gathering in Abuja.

He claimed that in order to raise the whopping N869 billion necessary to perform the population and housing census in 2023, they are looking for donations from Nigerians.

He said,

“The total requirements for this census, including the post-census activities, is N869 billion, this is about 1.88 billion US dollars.

When you hear the numbers, they really look very huge. Censuses all over the world, the average is between four to six dollars. However, in the United States, they spend $16 per person. In Botswana, they spend about $10 per person. So Nigeria’s $6 per person, you’ll agree with me, is very reasonable.

So far, the government has spent 291.5 billion naira which is $632 million. This is about 46 percent of the requirement for the census. I know this time around we’re not just doing only the population census, we’re also doing a housing census.”

In response to the report, Yhemo Lee encouraged the federal government to cancel the 2023 census in a humorous video posted to his Instagram page.

As they recently spent N355 billion on the 2023 general election, he said it is not ideal for them to spend that ‘outrageous’ sum.

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