Census and the castrated minorities
By Chris Akiri
THE Federal Government has reportedly slated the National Population Census for November 2005. In most countries of the world, census-taking is a decennial (ten-yearly) exercise, in imitation, presumably of the United States, whose first federal census was taken in 1790, and has been taken thereafter after every tenth year. Like the US, Great Britain and France took their first censuses in 1801. Thereafter, it became a decennary event. In Nigeria, attempts at census taking are spasmodic, the last one being in 1991.
According to the United Nations Draft Recommendations on Population Census (1970), a census is defined as "the total process of collecting, compiling and publishing demographic data pertaining, at a particular time, to all persons in a defined territory". Census taking has since become much more involved in that it encompasses a wide range of information, such as on the number of people (male and female) in a particular defined territory, the age-brackets of the people, their occupations, etc. Without a credible population data base, no meaningful socio-economic development and reforms or the expansion of the productive base via the optimum utilisation of the country's human and natural resources can take place. Accordingly, an accurate and reliable census taking has become a desideratum devoutly to be wished.
Doubtless, Nigeria heard of the word spelt "demography" for the first time in the first half of the 20th century and, in 1952, organised what could only be remotely dignified with the name of a census. It was, for all the efforts, a farcical undertaking carrying no scintilla of credibility whatsoever, as it was characterised by grave omissions, particularly in the Southern minority areas. Nigeria was said to be 30,762,000-strong: The Hausa/Fulani were 12,660,000; others in the North were 4,175,000; the Ibo were 3,846,000; others in the East were 3,369,000; the Yoruba were 4,954,000; others in the West (Midwest) were just 1,491,000, and Lagos was 267,000.
If the 1952/53 census was farcical by reason of gross undercount in the minority areas of the country, the 1963 census was simply ludicrous. The word "inflation" was most probably first associated with the 1963 census in Nigeria: The Hausa/Fulani leapfrogged to 21,816,000; others in the North were said to be 7,993,000, or a total of 29,809,000 for the Northern Region, yielding an intercensal percentage increase of 77.1 and an annual rate of 7.7; the Ibo jumped over the sticks to land on 6,223,000; others in the East were said to be 6,171,000, or a total of 12,394,000 for the Eastern Region, yielding an intercensal percentage increase of 71.8 and an annual rate of 7.2; the Yoruba skimmed the roof-top to land on 10,266,000, yielding an intercensal percentage increase of 107,2 and an annual rate of 10.7. John Graunt, the founder of demography, must have turned, muttering imprecations, in his grave!
As though the overwhelming majority of Midwestern men were castrated or suffered an abscission of their genitalia to curb reproductive capabilities in that part of the country, the whole of what was then the Midwest ambled from 1,491,000 (1953) to 2,536,000 in 1963, indicating an intercensal increase of 70.1, and an annual rate of 7.0! Understandably, by reason of its cosmopolitan nature, Lagos moved from 267,000 (1953) to 665,000 (1963), yielding an intercensal percentage increase of 149.1, and an annual rate of 14.9. According to international observers and other experts even in our own National Population Commission (NPC), the 1963 census was inflated by over 14 million people! Quite clearly, in contradistinction to the snail-speed population movement in the Midwest, where it was as though three-quarters of the men were gelded, in the super tribes, it was as if every man was injected, at the rump, with some potent aphrodisiac, having a tonic effect on his reproductive zeal.
Even though the 1991/92 census figures had a greater quality of plausibility than those of 1962/63, they were still far from the realm of accuracy as each of the super-tribes strove to outdo the other in a delicate balance of power tussle. The Hausa/Fulani out-pointed all others by scoring 27,058,595 (or 24.0% increase); others in the North got 20,193,361 (or 152.6% increase); the Yoruba registered 11,914,860 (or 16.0% increas, in expiation, no doubt, of the 1963 censal 'constipation'!); the Ibo got 10,712,675 (or 72.2% increase), all the minority ethnic nationalities in the former Eastern Region were fobbed off with 8,209,197 (or 33.0% increase) Lagos got 5,685,871 (or 755% increase) whilst Bendel (Edo/Delta) was led up the garden path and left with 4,730,029 (or 86.5% increase).
To the unwary, the 1991/92 figures in the foregoing paragraph appear to represent some effort to rectify the politically negotiated figures of the 1962/63 census. The fact, however, is that the 1952/53 figures from which the 1962/63 figures derived their validity were just as phoney as the 1991/92 figures which relied on the 1962/63 figures for their imprimatur. It is trite logic that when the premises of a statement (in this case, the 1952/53 and 1962/63 censuses) are wrong, the conclusion on which they are based (in this case, the 1991/92 census) cannot be right.
Riled by the inveterate manipulation of census figures by Nigerian politicians over the years, a demographer, Mr. S.O. Adekanye, had once cried blue murder: "...Such then", he lamented, "were the patterns of errors in the censuses conducted in Nigeria after the middle of this (i.e. 20th century); gross undercounts in the 1952/53 census and gross overcounts thereafter. Yet because these are official figures, the public use them in the computation of rates without adequately evaluating their accuracy, and arrive, unfortunately, at some erroneous conclusions..." Even the NPC itself, made a clean breast of the fact that "the figures (i.e for the 1962/63 census) were generally inflated by between 15 and 19 per cent", adding that it was also true that "some areas had a greater degree of inflation than others..."
In all the censuses so far taken in Nigeria, before and after Independence, the accent had been on a wrong premise - land mass, or the expanse of land, instead of on population density, expressed as the number of people per unit of land area. It cannot be gainsaid that the South-South, though small territorially, is demonstrably the most densely populated part of this country. Nigeria, with a putative population of between 120 and 130 million, has an approximate area of only 573,987.4km2.
In contradistinction to that, the Republic of Sudan (the largest country in Africa), with an area of 2,503,890 km2, has a population of only 28,100,000; Algeria, with an area of 2,381,741km2, has a population of only 27,940.000; similarly, the Democratic Republic of Congo (Zaire), with an area of 2,344,856km2, has a population of about 2,275,000; The People's Republic of China, with an area of 9,573,980km2, has a population of over 1.3 billion, whereas the United States of America, with an area of 9,529,063km2 (almost the same size as China), has a population of just 300,000,000; Saudi Arabia, with an area of 2,240,000km2 has a population of only 17,880,000; Bangladesh, with a rather tiny area of 147,570km2, has a population of 120,090,000, etc. Quite clearly, therefore, the population of any country cannot, and should not, be based purely on its territorial expanse, but on population density.
In the forthcoming (November 2005) National Population Census, the NPC is advised to adopt the zero-option in all aspects of the exercise, assuming, that is, that there has been no census in the past, affording a comparative reference to the new headcount. It is further advised to give a wide berth to the criminal practice whereby its enumerators, like those who officiated in the benighted National Identity Card Scheme, recognised only three ethnic nationalities in Nigeria - Hausa/Fulani, Yoruba and Ibo. The NPC should take this write-up as a plea for a clearheaded appreciation of the dangers that accompany a census, which fails to meet a reasonable standard of accuracy. For good measure, it should keep the twin sins of multiple enumeration and omission at an arm's length and should, above all, remember that the politicisation of census, anywhere in the world, is an inexorable recipe for socio-economic underdevelopment.
