Speaking with Daily Champion in Abuja, acting Director of Publicity of the Commission, Hajia Fati Kadiri said the decision to delete the data from the instrument was not the commission痴 but that of Federal Executive Council (FEC).

She said the commission痴 hands are tied as it was not party to the decision to delete the data.

She, however, said the commission is yet to meet over the South East governors・threat, even as she said NPC will not go contrary to any decision of the FEC.

It would be recalled that the issue of non- inclusion of ethnicity and religion in the questionnaire was first raised in September last year by Governor Ahmed Makarfi.

Speaking at a workshop organized for stakeholders in Kaduna by the National Population Commission (NPC), Governor Makarfi warned that he will mobilize Northern states to boycott the census if ethnicity and religion are included in the instrument.

Similarly, rising from a one-day meeting in Abakaliki, Ebonyi State, the South-East governors vowed to mobilize against the exercise if the twin issues of ethnicity and religion were not included in the instrument.

The governors said: "Since the National Council of State meeting of Wednesday, January 12, 2005, we have consulted our people and hereby note that the issues of religion and ethnicity have always been reflected in national issues. We therefore insist that religion and ethnicity should be reflected in the census data form. If this is not done, we in the southeast have decided to opt out of the 2005 census."

Host governor of the South-East parley, Dr. Sam Egwu, said since all forms concerning employment or appointment as well as other major issues at the national level normally contain spaces for identification of state of origin and ethnicity, it is also important that an important national exercise as the census embody such data.

According to him, census has to do with numbers and "it is vitally important that Nigerians know every detail that is necessary.

Said he: "The Igbo want to know their full number in this country. The Yoruba, Hausa and others will also want to know theirs. But you and I know that in any state you go to in this country, apart from the indigenes of the state, the next in population is the Igbo.

"We have our people scattered in all parts of this country and therefore, it is unfair to now count an Igboman in Sokoto as a Sokoto man."

The issue of head-count has often been acrimonious in Nigeria as it is a major index for allocation of resources from the common till.

Apart from the 1991 census, most past of such census were discredited and rejected by different groups in the country.