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Ndigbo and the Census
Comfort Obi
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Let me state that I neither accept
the census figures as released
by the Ismaila Makama-led National Population Commission (NPC), nor do I take it seriously. It stands logic on its head.
Two things struck me as the most ridiculous. According to the NPC, Nigeria has more men than women. I ought to be clapping. Some lousy Nigerian men are fond of saying they take, or intend to take, more than a wife because there are more women than men in Nigeria. So, not to leave some of us ‘husbandless’, there is the need to lump us together as in two-to-one, three-to-one, four-to-one, or more. And I have not taken the number of concubines, and the Pay-As-You-Gos into consideration! Now, thanks to the NPC, such men should hide their heads in shame. If I understand the NPC, Nigerian women, those with courage, should sympathise with our men, and take them in multiples so that none of them stays ‘wifeless' or 'concubineless.'
But no woman is clapping. They think that the NPC lied. Facts on the ground say otherwise. From schools, market places, churches, and even work places, it seems obvious to me that women may, indeed, be more than men in number. At a wedding reception the other day, a High Court Judge, who was the chairman, took a look at the number of women as opposed to the number of men present, and quipped: “Where did the NPC get the figures they released from?” My Lord is right. In all aspects of the census results, we are asking the same question.
The brazen lie that Kano is more populated than Lagos stinks to high heavens. Lagos is, according to relevant world bodies, a megacity. Meaning that there are, at least, 10 million people living there. I have never heard, or read, where Kano was described as a megacity. On the contrary, what is read about Kano is the mass exodous of non-indigenes over religious riots.
The Lagos State Government is contesting the figures. It should. In 1991, the NPC put the population of the state at 5.6 million. In the last 15 years or so, going by the minimum population increase of 3.15 per cent, the population of Lagos would be 9,053,752, not the 9,013,534 ascribed to the state by the NPC. But there is a more compelling reason than the above which Lagos State has advanced. The number of houses enumerated in Lagos was 4.9 million. If each house, argues Lagos State, has three persons living in it, the figure would be 14.7 million – over five million more than the nine million the NPC figures show.
Lagos is not the only state which feels short- changed. The hardest hit are the states in the South-east, and a couple of states in the South-south.Kaduna, NPC says, is even more populated than Rivers. A spokesperson for the Ohanaeze Ndigbo dismisses the population of the South east states released by the NPC, as unacceptable. The very respected Senator Ben Obi says the figures are a confirmation of the gradual, and deliberate annihilation of Ndigbo. I agree. But my reaction is that Ndigbo should shut up! I will come back to this later.
In the North, they are rejoicing. They should. They did not expect such a result. They are shocked. Many of their elites were afraid of the census. They granted press interviews saying President Olusegun Obasanjo had a hidden agenda; that he wanted the census so that he would teleguide the NCP to deliberately say that the South was more than the North in population. Now, the reverse is the case. At the VIP lounge of the local wing of the Murtala Muhammed International Airport the other day, a Northerner said rather loudly: “This President cannot hurt the North. He dares not.” He is right. See how, after encouraging the South that the Presidency in 2007, for equity, justice, and fair play, should remain in the South, he suddenly switched to Katsina State Governor, Umaru Yar’Adua. And it was done in a humiliating manner. But I digress. Let me go back to the title of this write-up – Ndigbo and the census.
So, Ndigbo are protesting the census figures. I am Igbo, but my reaction is: It serves Ndigbo right. We take nothing seriously. We just talk and talk . We neither protect our interests, nor our people. Example: Neither Ohanaeze, nor any serious Igbo organisation, has asked for the release of Chief Ralph Uwazuruike of the Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB). Uwazuruike and MASSOB are a nuisance. But they are not more of a nuisance than the Oodua People’s Congress (OPC) and its leaders. Yet, the OPC leaders, Dr. Fredrick Faseun, and Gani Adams, detained with Uwazuruike, have since been released. More than legal jargons, they were set free because of the pressure, and threats, from Yoruba leaders. But I digress again.
So, Ndigbo are crying over the census figures. From being one of the largest tribes, they have been reduced to a minority. During the census period, Igbo leaders were there when hoodlums, masquerading in the names of MASSOB and BAKASSI, stopped census officials from counting in some parts of the South east. They pursued them with guns, matchete and acid. Nobody stopped this disservice to Ndigbo. So now, we have seen the result. Everything in Nigeria will be shared according to the census figures. Long term and/or short term plans will be based on that. And Ndigbo will be nowhere. We have become minorities. We now compete with the smallest states in Nigeria?
Ndigbo travel a lot, I am told. I know. But the population of the Southern people, particularly Ndigbo in the North, has since been reduced. The constant religious riots, the killings of Ndigbo in the North has since seen them leaving the North in droves. Yet, the population of the North keeps swelling. How? But back to where I began: The census figures as released by the NPC is reeking of fraud. From the onset, the census was programmed to fail. It has.
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