Chairman, National Population Commission (NPC), Chief Samu’la Danko Makama, has tasked all the Federal Commissioners to utilise every available medium in defending the 2006 census result.

He said despite all the efforts put in by the commission in conducting the census in 2006, the result has been given unjustifiable and unconstructive criticisms.

This is even as he urged Nigerians to desist from unscientific inclination and insinuations about the census result, insisting that the 2006 population and housing census was truly scientific and modern poll.

Chief Makama stated this in Abuja at a one-day sensitisation workshop on the result of the 2006 population and housing census for Federal Commissioners.

The NPC boss said that the National Council of State has unanimously adopted the final report of the 2006 census.

The council, according to him, has advised the President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua to accept the result and lay the report on the table of each House of Assembly as provided by the 1999 Constitution.

The workshop, the chairman said, was to sensitise the commissioners on their expected roles in educating the general public and stakeholders on the accuracy and reliability of the2006 census and their expected roles in guarding the result against politically-inspired and unscientific criticisms.

" It is also expected to equip the participants with the knowledge and skills to properly project the accuracy and reliability of the 2006 census.

"The 2006 population and housing poll is a truly scientific and modern census. Its methodology and procedures compare favourably with any other census even in the advanced world", he said.

Earlier in his remark, the FCT NPC Commissioner, Alhaji Sani A. Sulieman, had said that the deliberation at the meeting would go a long way in re-positioning the NPC for discharge of its constitutional mandate.

"With the adoption of the result on ground, NPC is now set for dissemination of the data generated from the national census".

"The nation can now boast of adequate and reliable demographic data for planning. It is my hope that this workshop will come up with feasible and cost effective ways of making the 2006 census data available and accessible to data users", he said.