Are you aware that Nigeria will be conducting her fourth post-independence national headcount in 2005? What do you know about the delimitation of units for the exercise, recruitment of staff and their orientation, the procedures and even the dates for this all important activity? Apart from the nebulous undertaking by the National Population Commission (NPC) to carry out the census project next year, and the sporadic media statements of the Commission’s Chairman, Mr. Samaila Makama, little else seems to be going on towards actualising it. It will not surprise anyone if we have to shift the date once again. Perhaps, it is better to postpone it and prepare properly in order to have the first authentic and acceptable census than to embark on it ill-prepared and wind up with another wasteful hoax.
We must first of all define the primary objectives we want to achieve with the impending census. My own idea is that Census 2005 must be credible and acceptable. None of the three previous censuses held since our independence (1963, 1973 and 1991) has been accepted. The sole reason for rejecting the outcomes was politics. The three major ethnic groups, which had also controlled the three original regions of the country, always tried to manipulate the processes to prove they are the “majority of majorities”. The more favourably placed for advantage, the more each of the groups was able to influence the outcome, and those which were not so well placed always rejected it out of hand.
This game was also played by the two biggest religions in Nigeria: Christianity and Islam. The promoters of these two religions felt if they proved they had the majority in the country, they would be better placed to give themselves more privileges, or at least, whittle down the clout of the other. For instance, the Moslem group had felt that their self-perceived majority position in Nigeria was subsumed because the British colonialists, who brought the Western system, also championed their religion, Christianity. This accounts for the fact that we run officially with the so-called Christian calendar (seven-day week, 365/366-day annum) rather than the Islamic lunar one, with weekend holidays at Saturdays and Sundays, instead of Fridays.
To make up for this, especially in the north and the federal services, public servants of the Muslim religion broke off work at 1.00PM on Fridays and many never really bothered to do any further useful work for the rest of the day.
When the colonialists were leaving, they created a three-regional structure where the north was bigger than east and west both in land mass and population. This became a potent strategic political weapon in the hands of the north. Each time similar exercises of state creation, population census, delimitation and distribution of electoral of constituencies and revenue allocation came up, they sought to consolidate this colonially-established demographic majority status. In the same vein, the other parts of the country which felt short-changed by the colonial legacy also sought a level ground.
When the north took over the political powers of the federation at the withdrawal of the colonialists, they also worked very hard to super-impose their religious and cultural fashions on Nigeria’s public affairs, always using their perceived population superiority in politics and religion as justification. They were able to enforce the public sponsorship of the Islamic Hajj and always fought hard to introduce the Sharia penal code during each constitutional conference. Of course, the Christian groups always fought back and in the process, got some concessions. For instance, rather than cancel public funding of the Hajj, the government decided to also fund Christian pilgrimages to Jerusalem and Rome, so that as the Muslim returning from Mecca answered the new title of “Alhaji” his Christian counterpart from Jerusalem added “JP” (Jerusalem Pilgrim) to his title! The recent declaration of the National Mosque and the Christian Ecumenical centre in Abuja as “national monuments” is a product of this concession, added to the fact that President Olusegun Obasanjo wanted a legitimate opportunity to exploit government resources in completing the Christian Centre, just as the Muslim rulers of Nigeria pooled official resources to erect the National Mosque.
That is one side of the debilitating effects of politics in our demographic project. There is a flipside effect. While the three major groups – the Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba – fought it out, the various ethnic minorities were all but completely forgotten. Even when they diffidently raised their voices to remind us that, they too exist, their complaints were treat as ignorable distractions. And so, the minorities started looking for their own strong points. In the north, the Minorities, who are predominantly Christians, found out that they control the guns of Nigeria. They dominate the junior and middle levels of the gamut of the Nigerian agencies of coercion, especially the army, police, customs, air force, immigrations and prisons. The number one vocation of these people, apart from farming, is working in the uniformed forces. They, therefore, became the striking arm of the Nigerian Christian community (especially during religious crises) and featured prominently during coups. They realised this potential during the civil war, when they were massively mobilized to fight “to keep Nigeria one”.
On the other hand, the Minorities of the south also found a handy weapon for arguing their position. The incidence of petroleum power is essentially a phenomenon of the territories of the minority communities of southern Nigeria. There is a lot of it in the hinter Igbo country and a little bit in the Yoruba areas, but at least 80% of the petroleum resources of Nigeria being actively exploited are either on Minority lands or in the sea adjacent to minority lands. This then created a fad whereby being a “minority” in the south connoted some privileged position! A minority community of southern Nigeria was associated with oil production, and its indigenes pushed to be thusly identified, for oil derivational privilege. Even communities in the outlying Igbo country, seeing that the Igbo had lost heavily the majority argument as a result of their role in the civil war, started declaring themselves “minorities”. Just two years ago, some young Ukwa-Ngwa politicians bade to pull out of being Igbo!
Now, suppose we admit that the indices of tribe and religion have done this country an incalculable harm; that it is a major reason for the unending crises that have rocked this country in the struggle of the elite for advantage, what harm will it inflict on our impending census if we keep them out? If your tribe or religion or state of origin ceases to matter, and all that matters is that you are a Nigerian residing in any part of Nigeria of your choice, what harm will it do to our demographic resources? In what ways will it harm our planning projections? Is the harm likely to be more than that created by primacy of tribe, religion and state of origin? If we find out that there are ten million Nigerians living in Lagos, for instance, what additional help do we get from the details such as the number of Yorubas, Igbo, Hausas and other Nigerians, Muslims, Christians, indigenes and “settlers”?
These details have not helped our country in the past and are not likely to help her in the near future. The only setback our demography will suffer temporarily is that our population figure does not have them. But it will help us to know where Nigerians (without minding their religions, tribes and state of origin) are and what needs to be done to take development nearer to them.
We can also reform our revenue allocation indices by sharing according to “equality of zones”, rather than “equality of states”.
We can also create representation based on equality of zones rather than states. This will surely require constitutional amendment, but it will also engender population redistribution and equalisation, especially as citizenship replaces tribe, religion and state of origin.
Once again, the coming census must have a nation-building, political objective. We should sit down and flesh out some of these ideas before we begin to count again.
