Demographics for Politics

Demographics for Politics

Umar Bello

I have just finished reading newspaper article where the writer is spewing the cliche about the just concluded census that it is a fraud and that how can one state ever be more populated than the other. If angels were to descend from heaven and count us there would certainly be complaints! For some sentimental reasons, one region would always want to say that it is more populated than the other or that women are more than men to massage our male ego.

Census has become so politicized that the loom of cynicism and distrust has been passed down from the 60's to date and from the lettered lot who are blinded by sentiments down to the masses who ordinarily can not spell'census'. Wole Soyinka has maintained, with no pun intended, that the general consensus is that the census is a fraud without caring to go into the details of his own 'demographics' other than the regurgitation of what ordinarily is pedestrian. Danfo drivers and suya sellers will continue from where the Soyinkas stop. If the latter are blinded by their cheap sentiments, the former are by their ignorance. Census debate has been carried away from the citadels of learning down to motor parks and markets.

Getting down to the nitty-gritties, If for instance Kano is more populated than Lagos , will that add more tuwo on the table of an average Kano man or will it make the amala on the table of an average Lagosian less? in simple economics shorn of all high falutin grammar and bourgeois politics this should be the real debate for the masses. When the chips are finally down, we would simply realize that the population will only accrue benefits to a trifling few elite, and to the overall population, it is a reality of teeming liability. The Kano population, for example, all sentiments aside, is more of a liability than an asset since it is not one that is put to full optimum use. Far from that, it is simply a parasitic one that leeches on the little resources of the state.

The 65% unused land recently talked about by the CBN Governor is mostly found in the North. If the Northern states could come together and sponsor irrigational and agricultural programmes in the whole states and use that great population on the barren land, it is then that the population would be of immense advantage not where it creates more senatorial constituencies for more fatcats at the national assembly or a slight increase in federal revenue that will be siphoned into pockets. Sound economics, as Soludo said, is sound politics. But our governments are not concerned about such populist and altruistic programmes because they are long term and only benefit the overall population. What they are concerned with are immediate useless cash-thieving projects that will only make them richer.

And why is it that we are always en bloc on tenuous sentimental issues not ones that are of immense benefits to our lives? Don't be surprised to find Nigerians arguing about the census on a fuel queue or in a chat just in the moonlight since NEPA has nipped the light!. Why don't we raise our sinews on issues that unite us in grief like fuel shortage, NEPA, poor education, insecurity etc rather than on simply ego-massaging and elite-beneficial sentiments? Just my rambling thoughts.

UMAR BELLO,
WRITES FROM JUBAIL,
K S A.