The Greater Accra Zabarma Chief and President of Ghana Zabarma Association, Alhaji Sarki Pro-Umar Tanko Abubakar, has urged his people to fully participate in the Upcoming National Population and Housing Census exercise slated for 27th June 2021.
Speaking on a live program on Accra base Amane Fm Alhaji Sarki called on his people to prepare for the country’s first digital National Population and Housing Census exercise.
He said, census information will be used for statistical purposes and not for identifying people for taxation or punitive purposes as it was assumed some years ago in the Zongo Communities.
He revealed that the Census will help to know the number of people within every community especially the Zongo Communities as well as to identify the number of Chiefs, Imams, youth, aged, Mosques, Churches, students and among others.
This he said will enable government to have data on every citizen and be fair in sharing the national cake.
He further urged his people to be actively involved without fear of any discrimination adding that every Zabarma who is a foreigner should identify himself as such and those who are citizens should as well identify themselves as such.
According to him giving wrong information as a foreigner will disadvantage the country in many ways .
He further called on his people to be vigilant when giving out their details to ensure that the right information are captured into the data.
He added the Census officials are under oath of secrecy and therefore information given will not be send out to the public hence the need for all to give accurate information.
He said the Census process requires the Census officials to visit places of residence and all structures to count and enumerate all persons regardless of their residential status.
He revealed that over the years the number of Muslims in the country were reduced due the lack of sensitization from the appropriate stakeholders.
He therefore called on Muslims to be sure of what is ticked on the religious aspect so as to capture the accurate number of Muslims in the country adding that any wrong information will take ten years to be corrected.
He called on the various Muslims sects to desist from using names of their sects in providing information during the Housing and Population Census which according to him was part of the problems Muslims are facing when it comes to numbers. “All sects in Islam are Muslims” he noted.
Source Muhammed Faisal Mustapha