MONROVIA-Nimba County District #8 Representative, Larry P. Younquoi, one of those who have openly condemned the Government 14, 2022 Census still describes the entire process as messy and has the potential to create problems in the future.

Since the foundation of Liberia, the country has conducted five censuses with the latest being the ongoing already delayed census.

The expectation of many Liberians has been that about this time, the result of the November 14, 2022 census which came out,  would have been used to aid in the boundary delimitation process prior to the conduct of any electoral procedure in the country.

Contrary, this is yet to be done by the Liberia Institute of Statistic Geo-Information Services (LISGIS), the body that is clothed with the responsibility of conducting census in Liberia.

Earlier on, November 14, 2022, President George M. Weah through a proclamation called on every citizen of the country to stay home to be counted, a request which was obeyed by many Liberians, but disappointingly, workers of LISGIS did not show up to do the counting in many places.

What was the predation?

The census with the final result still in the pipeline should have been conducted many years back in 2017, but it was postponed many times due to what the current and former government called a lack of funding.

After many delays and funding were finally made available by partners, many predicted that the process would not have been possible.

One person who has not eaten his words when it comes to the “messy census” is Nimba County District eight Representative, Larry P. Younquoi.

It can be recalled that Rep. Younquoi made an eleventh-hour request to postpone the National Population and Housing Census (NPHC).

He wrote members of the House of Representatives saying, “Distinguish colleagues, I am appealing to this august body to kindly mandate the speaker to liaise with the leadership of the senate to have the Legislature savage the ongoing process by putting a halt to it and increases the oversight of the Legislature over the whole exercise while directing LISGIS and partners to recalibrate the process in order to lend it to producing the desired result.”

Rep. Younquoi who chairs the House Committee on Good Governance and the House’s chief census expert said since the extension of the census night, followed by the adoption of a new Joint- Resolution by the Legislature, “The entire process is still characterized by chaotic conditions ranging from poor recruitment, poor and uncoordinated training, the inadequate logistical endowment of LISGIS’s county offices, chaotic payment process of census workers, among other shortcomings.”

Fast Forward:

Preliminary results of the Census were released on Wednesday, February 22, 2023.

The Acting Director General at the Liberia Institute of Statistics and Geo-Information Services (LISGIS), Mr. Lawrence George, said: “The de facto Population in Liberia on Census Night [November 10-11, 2022 was 5.2 million (5,248,621).”

According to him, the total population increased by 1,772,013 (50 percent) compared to the 2008 census.

Representative Younquoi is one person who is upbeat about the constituency delimitation which has not been done while the National Election Commission is conducting the Biometric Voters Registration Process.

What do opposition political parties say?

When the provisional result was released, opposition political parties said it was unrealistic.

The CCP has taken the National Election Commission to task for commencing the conduct of the Biometric Voters Registration Process without setting the constituency delimitation.

New Republic Liberia

Alphonso Toweh

Has been in the profession for over twenty years. He has worked for many international media outlets  including: West Africa Magazine, Africa Week Magazine, African Observer and  did occasional reporting for CNN, BBC World Service, Sunday Times, NPR, Radio Deutchewells, Radio Netherlands. He is the current correspondent for Reuters 
 He holds first  MA with honors in International  Relations and a  candidate for second master in International Peace studies and Conflict  Resolution from the University of Liberia.