of census and elections

Officially there are 140m Nigerian as at 2006, Men 71.7m, women 68.3m,

However, Mr Odimegu then Chairman of NPC said no census in Nigeria’s history has been valid and that trying to count Nigerians was “impossible”. Note impossible…..

Odimegu said “These figures are just guesstimates. Nobody knows whether the population is 120 million, 150 million, 200 million – no Nigerian, not the NPC, the UN, the World Bank,”

Odimegu said. “Unless you conduct a proper census, which has never been done without political interference, it is not possible to know.”

So first point, we don’t know how many we are…

The 2006 census said Kano has 9.4 million inhabitants, followed by Lagos, with just over 9 million.

Lagos state rejected this result, conducted its own census and said it has 17.5 million inhabitants.

Africapolis – the African arm of e-Geopolis, a global study of urban populations, which is supported by the Agence Française de Développement – provided population estimates

The organization believes that 2006 census numbers for Lagos of around 9 million were reasonable and that the state’s own estimates of 17.5m are overblown.

However the group found the 2006 census figure for Kano city, at 2.8 million, was inflated,

However Lagos is not the only state to have complained, This result cuts across many states, many states have simply over bloated census figures In fact Nigeria has seen 2 annulled census (1973 and 1991) and census in Nigeria are so controversial, we don’t ask about religion or tribe…

From the 1953 census done by the British to the 2006 census done by Nigerians, all census have ended in controversy why are census so important to Nigerians, after all its just a simple head count, is it not?

Well in Nigeria the population determines how much a state and local government gets from the consolidated revenue fund/FAAC .State population accounts for 26% of the criteria to share the 31% allocated to states from the joint federation account, (population in a  LGA carries a 37% weighting to share the 15.31% allocated to them)

The population figures also determine how many seats a state has in the House of Representative.  

others criteria are; basic equality of states 45.23%, Landmass & Terrain 10.70%, Internal revenue effort 8.31%Education 3%Health 3%Rural road and water ways 1.5%Portable water 1.5%

 So how many people there are in a state or local government is very very important, I would call it the most important asset a state of Local government can have in Nigeria.

But let’s look critically at the Nigerian population figures. We have had 4 census figures, 1952, 1963, 1991 and 2006.

In summary,

From 1952 to 1991, the Northern region has maintained 54.1% average for all census in Nigeria.

From 1952 to 1991, the Western region has maintained 18.7% average for all census in Nigeria.

From 1952 to 1991, the Eastern region has maintained 22.7% average for all census in Nigeria.

Let me be clear, according to NPC in 39 years (1953 to 1991) ALL regions, North and South have all grown at about the same pace. Rural to Urban drift had not occurred in Nigeria in 39 years! The relative proportion has remained the same! Nigerians don’t migrate.

That is the population of Lagos, Oyo, Ondo, Ogun, Osun; and Ekiti has grown 16%, 19.6% and 19.6%.

The same as Ebonyi, Abia, Enugu, Anambra, and Imo, 23.7%, 22.3%, 21.4.

Ditto for the North, 55.5%, 53.5%, 53.4%

I did not say so; the Nigerian Population Commission said so.

So what about the 2006 census? Maybe the figures have been relatively the same because it was not done under a democracy,

Ok 2006 census, SW retain 19.65%, North retained 52%, East 26.7…  NO CHANGE…

It would appear that census in Nigeria is an exercise in allocation. The global number can be 300m, that’s immaterial, the regional allocations are preknown and applied.

 These allocations seem to follow the desire to maintain share of FAAC.

The World Bank reports 168 million people were living in Nigeria in 2012, which on the basis of 3% growth rates would suggest a population of around 178 million in 2014.

This 174m really makes no sense is all we will do is allocate to maintain a cast iron distribution. How can we plan? If the census figure per state and region are preknown?

Are the census figures correct?

Should population determine how much a state should get? More than portable water, roads, health & education, derivation?

If population brings money, will any state adopt family planning?

 If education and health care brings so little money from FAAC, will any state provide it? 

But it’s get more interesting if we compare the census results to election votes cast…

 In the 1979 presidential elections, the North cast 48.2% the East 22% and West 25.8.

In the 1999 presidential elections the North cast North 52.5%, East 24.2% and West 18.3%,

In the 2003 presidential elections the North cast 52.3%, East 24.6% and west 13.2%

In the 2011 presidential elections the North cast 52.8%, East 23.56% and west 21%

 4 Presidential elections. The North and the East numbers have stayed almost the same.

Back from that digression, what can we do going forward? We surly cannot plan if we don’t how many people live and earn in Nigeria> I mean can we count a proper census, devoid of politics

The realist in me says that’s impossible

It’s much easier to redefine what population means than to take away population. So can we define population to mean population in school as evidenced by education budget spend per child by the state for instance?

If a state claims a 9m population figure it should make a budgetary commitment to that figure by allocating to education a budget to take care of such population in its budget.

We can also define population as the number of kids vaccinated, point is tie that population figure to something, and so it’s just be a figure given to a state to spend as will.

Why pay for population if the governor will simply use that fund to sponsor religious pilgrimages or billboards? The population funds must be used for the population, education, health not billboards.

Without a census we cannot plan, without planning, we can’t do anything…

It’s our problem, we can fix it