Census
2005: What Makes Nigerians Wary
By
Hassan
S. Indabawa
Indabawa20022000@yahoo.com
Ordinarily
no one should be wary by the Government’s attempt to conduct a head
count exercise. Not so in
Nigeria
. And indeed not under the tutelage of the present
Obasanjo administration.
It
should however be noted that no one is implying that Obasanjo
administration cannot conduct a successful headcount. Far from it. What
is obvious from obasanjo’s antecedent is that his administration,
whose legality is being challenged before the courts of law, cannot
conduct a credible and acceptable population census.
Even
though that all the past exercises were also marred by controversies and
unacceptability, the 2005 census exercise would unarguably end up in a
like manner, despite all the “promises” by the organizers, that they
hope to break this trend by using “Satellite imaging not only to count
people, but also dwellings in Nigeria”.
Curiously,
it is the planned deployment of this satellite technology that made most
observers to be skeptical about the whole exercise.
The
Government has reportedly directed the National population commission
(NPC) to use images from the NigeriaSat-1 satellite to reduce “human
error” in 2005 National population census.
The
Director-General of the National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA),
Professor Ajayi Boroffice, on 4th May last year, has said
that this collaboration is important because only space maps would
produce “reliable” results in delineation of several settlements
scattered across large expanse of land in the country.
However
Prof. Boroffice’s pronouncement only amplifies the persistent argument
of some hard line Southern elites, which have been becoming more
strident over the past one year. Indeed, even president Obasanjo has
lent his support to this line of thinking by implying that the data and
image to be used in capturing “rooftops” of villages that cluster
each location of the country, would be used to determine the actual
population of these settlements.
Good,
one would say. But why do Obasanjo administration appears to be so eager
to use satellite imaging in determining the actual population figure of
Nigerians? More so, why do Southern elite, particularly Christian South,
are so keen in applauding the imaging system as a panacea to an
in-accurate census figure?
The
answer to these innocuous questions is not far fetched: The census
figures since 1952, has always been contested by the South. This is
because as we all know, population figure largely determines the
distribution of fiscal allocation and political power.
It
is on this premise that population of a particular group can to a large
extent, enhance it’s stake on the political power play of the nation.
This realization ostensibly galvanized the South in to hammering in to
the ears of all those who care to listen, that all the past census
exercises were deliberately skewed to favour the North.
And
now that the South has tasted power by Obasanjo presidency, the Southern
elite are hell bent in reversing the demographic representation of
Nigeria
. This, they would do by decapitating the supremacy
of an established Northern population.
Thus,
the debut of the NigeriaSat-1 satellite programme that would provide
“sharp and accurate” data and image of estimated 47,032 towns and
settlements that dots the Nigerian landscape. The NigeriaSat-1 satellite
was nonetheless launched on
27 September, 2003
.
However,
any keen and dispassionate observer can easily understand that there is
more to the programme than what appears to be on the surface. The South,
characteristically rallied behind, and applauded president Obasanjo for
finally resolving to address the “National Question”. Infact, the
census was supposed to be conducted in 2001, but OBJ inexplicably
refuses which clearly contravenes the Nigerian constitution.
Then
if the rooftop images are going to be the determining factor in
ascertaining the population density of a settlement, as asserted by
president Obasanjo in May last year, and vociferously expounded by some
notable southern elite, then there is indeed a plan to rig the
forth coming census exercise (as they did the 2003 General elections).
The
president had made an impression that it would be impossible for any one
[from the North?] to ascribe a population of lets say – 10,000 people
to a village shown on the satellite monitor to posses not more than 30
rooftops.
Pre-empting
the public consciousness that satellite images so far recorded had
indicated that South is more densely populated than the North, is also a
pointer to the insidious plan of Obasanjo administration to tinker with
the 2005 National population figure.
And
also this is why the North should naturally suspect the motive behind
being so enthusiastic by the Obasanjo apologists, in flaunting the
imaging system as a determinant in aggregate demographic representation
of Nigerians.
Paucity
of their reasoning presumably even emboldened them to claimed that the
whole North-West comprises of only 8632 towns and cities in a country of
47000 settlement, thus representing only 18.38% of the Nigerian land
mass. Whereas the South-West have 14403 settlements representing 30.6%
of
Nigeria
land mass with a population making up of 29.57
million as against the North-West’s 16.47% million!
Not
only that, they have already “analyzed” and got hold of an
“accurate” 2005 census figure in advance. According to these
“pundits”, if Prof. Ajayi Boroffice’s (also a Yoruba Southern
xtian) satellite images and data are correct, the order of
Nigeria
’s population according to state by state, should
be in this order:
1]
Lagos
13] Osun
25] Abia
2]
Oyo
14]
Edo
26] Jigawa
3]
Ogun
15] Delta
27] Ekiti
4]
Kaduna
16] River
28] Zamfara
5]
Ondo
17] Borno
29] Sokoto
6]
Kwara
18] Imo
30] Taraba
7]
Benue
19] Anambra
31] Nassarawa
8]
Kogi
20] Plateu
32] Ebonyi
9]
Kano
21]
Niger
33] Kebbi
10]
Adamawa
22]
Enugu
34] Gombe
11]
Bauchi
23] Katsina
35] Bayelsa
12]
Cross river
24] Akwa
Ibom 36]
Yobe
Abuja
These
enigmatic projections are by all means ridiculous, as they are also
laughable. However, they actually represent the mindset of typical
southern chauvinists. Therefore, my sincere advice is that if nothing
else was done to frustrate this reckless balderdash, president Obasanjo
in his usual guile effrontery, would present Nigerians with these
egregious claims as “accurate facts”.
Another
issue that would make Nigerian Muslims to be skeptical about
Obasanjo’s sincerity in conducting a credible population head count,
is his perceived Christinasation agenda of
Nigeria
. Despite the fact that Muslims in
Nigeria
constitute the majority in population, Obasanjo is
seen to be marginalizing Nigerian Muslims in most of the Federal
appointments.
Recently,
some notable Islamic organizations had to come out openly and cautioned
him on his “creeping marginalizition” of Nigerian Muslims. They
cited as injustice; his lopsided appointments in to federal cabinet and
other key federal positions. Indeed since the advent of Obasanjo’s
second term tenure, there seem to be an orchestrated design to subdue
Islam, which has already manifested in his recent appointment of
advisers and certain key positions.
Therefore,
it is logical for the Muslims to be wary of the whole exercise, as the
administration could consider disfavouring Muslims, by tilting the
census figure to their detriment. Even though Gov. Ahmed Makarfi of
Kaduna
State
has threatened to mount a boycott if the issue of
religion and ethnicity were included in the questionnaire, the last of
this issue may not have come to a definite end. Surprisingly, the NPC
Chairman Mr. Sama’ila Makama also appeared to be convinced by this
argument, he noted; “Since each religious and ethnic group would
prefer numerical superiority over the other, it might be safer to ignore
religion and ethnicity since there would be the temptation by each group
to explore ways to have an edge over the other.”
The
National Council of State, a body which includes the president, the 36
state governors and former heads of state also decided to approve the
avoidance of religious and ethnic affiliation of respondents to the
questionnaire.
The
United Nations however believed otherwise. The international body
recommends that census forms must include questions on these issues. So
was Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN).
Therefore, it remains to be seen on how our president, who is
ever eager to kowtow to international biddings and bend to the wishes of
his Christian brethren would wriggle out of this ephemeral cul-de-sac.
One
does not need a crystal ball to foretell the probable action of
President Obasanjo. Despite the Federal Government budgeting of N40
billion for the exercise, some international organizations and foreign
countries have already pledged to assist.
Britain
’s Department for International Development is
providing satellite imaging at a cost of almost $60,000. The European
Union (EU) is also supporting the head count with funding of 113.5m
euros to aid the “successful” implementation of the census. United
Nations population fund, USAID, DFID and UNDP have also all pledged
“assistance” with the census. And president Obasanjo had given them
an assurance that the funds would be utilize to ensure “value for
money”.
From
the foregoing, we can safely conclude that the 2005 National population
headcount may after all end up being controversial and may as well spark
off law suits just like the past census exercises.
The
Obasanjo administration for being openly unfair to the Muslims, is not
best suited to conduct a credible and acceptable National head count at
the moment.
What
is now required of the Muslim leaders, and their organizations is to
reach out to other patriotic Nigerians and civil organizations in order
to put a keen eye on the conduct of the whole exercise. This should be
concerted and absolute. Their uncompromising participation could go a
long way in obtaining an independent view on the collation and
interpretation of the demographic data.
Nevertheless,
president Obasanjo’s inexplicable shifting of the time-table for the
exercise from 2001 to the present; in which most of the fundamental
economic and political restructuring is being tailored, had cast
aspersions on the census exercise, just like his other programmes which
were widely perceived to be a well laid out plan, being unfolded to
permanently re-draw the politico-economic landscape of Nigeria.
Sources:-
1]
http://www.hausafulani.com/phpBB/viewtopic/
2]
http://allafrica.com/stories/
3]
http://www.nigeriafirst.org/article/
4]
http://www.mg.co.za/articlepage.aspx?articleid=area/insight/
5]
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcg:?cmd=Retrieve
6]
http://www.ipsnews.net/net/new_nota.asp?idnews=27552
7]
http://www.nigeriafirst.org/article_2447.shtml
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