BENIN CITY – The Edo State Government in collaboration with the National Census Bureau and the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC) has trained over 1,200 Edo youths on data collection for development planning.
Obaseki speaking during the launch of the programme, “Data To Make Edo Great Again,” said his government remains committed to ensuring a shared prosperity for all Edo citizens.
The governor said: “We have trained the first batch of 1,200 people to go from door-to-door across the state to obtain data and information from citizens as well as find out their living conditions and security situation. This will now enable our government to plan for the people and make the State great.
“These data that will be collected will help us plan for our people. By the time we are through with this exercise, we would be able to plan for Edo people. This event today has enabled us to produce an army of young men and women who will help us gather data and information on what we need to make Edo great again.”
Obaseki continued: “We are working with the local governments and the Ministry of Planning on the project. The data will enable us to have the information needed to develop the state; Edo will not fail but move further.
“This is a unique project and we are totally committed to this project as we want to leave Edo greater than we met it. We can plan 30 years ahead only when we have the data.”
Addressing the newly trained enumerators, the governor noted: “This is your own contribution in building your future. You have received high quality training; please take this aspect seriously because you will benefit from the exercise. I am here to join you to launch this laudable project. I am sending you out to all corners of the state to get data and information that we will utilize in making Edo great again.”
Senior Surveyor EDOGIS/State Project Manager, Eromosei Ezekiel, said a team of 20 individuals, with GIS background trained the enumerators on the use of cutting-edge mapping softwares, such as Quantum-GIS and ArcGIS, which involves the vectorization and digitizing of building footprints from High Resolution Imagery.
“The workflow is designed in such a way that while the enumerators identify each building on the basemap via their enumeration pad, the locational feature of each enumerated building allows us to uniquely match the same location on the image that we are vectorising.
“This process within the workflow ends with a geoprocessing algorithm that replicates the data stored from the field through the enumeration into the vectorized building footprints that have been done by the GIS Team,” he added.
One of the team leads, Isa Aghariagbonse Ojo, said 1,200 enumerators were recruited for the exercise, with 30 data validation officers, 20 GIS professionals, 10 IT and database administrators, five communication officers and five administrative support Staff.
