President Muhammadu Buhari has approved the postponement of the 2023 Population and Housing Census that is expected to take place next month.

Buhari made this known after a meeting with some members of the Federal Executive Council and the National Population Commission on Friday night.

The Nigerian leader said the earlier scheduled Census which was to hold from May 3-7 will be determined by the incoming administration when eventually inaugurated.

Earlier, a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, on Thursday, declined a request seeking an order postponing the 2023 Census slated to be held from May 3 to 5.

In his ex parte application, the applicant, Omotuyi Ademola, stated that the NPC currently lacked effective preparation and adequate publicity towards the conduct of a credible, effective and constitutional census in the country.

As a result, he demanded from the court for a declaration that the commission was currently underfunded and thus unprepared to conduct a credible, effective and constitutional census across Nigeria.

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Recall that Integrity News reported that the pan-Yoruba socio-political organisation, Afenifere called on the Federal Government to put all plans and arrangements to conduct the forthcoming National Housing and Population Census in Nigeria on a complete hold.

According to the group, Nigerians have been traumatised, especially by the pervasive insecurity, and “marooned in an economic quagmire that, in the last eight years, has rendered life most uninspiring, nasty, brutish and short.”

“It is rather shameful and painful that the President would celebrate, as an achievement, the purported containment of insecurity in Abuja, where the sovereignty of the nation has been wantonly challenged by terrorists,” the group said.

Afenifere further appealed to the judiciary to ensure that “all petitions in respect of the presidential election are timeously and justly resolved before the end of the tenure of the Buhari administration as the only way the confidence of Nigerians in its intervention may be earned.”