By Mohamed Jaward Nyallay

The Minister of Information and Civic Education, Chernor A. Bah, has described Census as a civic imperative that the government takes very seriously.

He made the statement on Monday, 13th January 2025, at the New Brookfields Hotel during the welcoming of a country assessment mission for the 2025 Decennial census.

“For us in the government of Sierra Leone, Census is a civic imperative. Census is about our identity, it’s who we are, because you count what you treasure, and we treasure the people of this country. Census is what will inform all the decisions we make as a country,” he said.

The Ministry of Information and Civic Education has been mandated by the President and cabinet to lead on the publicity and public engagement aspect of the Census, a role minister Bah said the ministry has aligned its 2025 targets to focus on.

“At our ministry, the Census is one of the key targets for us this year and internally we have developed a solid plan and we are ready to roll it out once the resources are made available to us,” Minister Bah said, in his capacity as Co-Chair for the Publicity Committee, statutorily set up to roll public engagement on the process.

Minister Bah noted that ensuring citizen ownership of the process is crucial for the success of the census.

“This Census is for us, Sierra Leoneans. We want to create citizen ownership for this census process. No matter how much help we get from international partners, we as a ministry want to take that ownership drive all across the country, so people will feel part of the process. This is part of our civic responsibility,” he concluded.