BY BRIGHT JACOB
The Federal Government of Nigeria has set the date for the commencement of its National Population and Housing Census in April 2023 after the May 2022 date earlier announced became impracticable over security risks and other contingency issues, thus making postponement inevitable.
However, as always with censuses in the country, raging controversies have continued to mar the planned conduct of an exercise stakeholders believe should be a veritable tool for national unity and development.
Next year’s census will be used to test the preparedness of the National Population Commission, the government agency saddled with the responsibility of enumerating Nigerians and obtaining vital demographic data needed for policy making, planning, and to gauge the wisdom of the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari in pumping almost N200bn into a project some Nigerians have termed ‘unnecessary-for-now’ and ‘resource depleting.’
On its part, the NPC is hoping to sway public opinion to its side regarding the pledge it made to deliver a seamless headcount and show it is ready to conduct Nigeria’s first digital census.
The Commission announced through its Chairman, Nasir Isa Kwarra that the conduct of a pilot census (originally slated to commence on June 27) would now be held in the first week of July because “equipment arrived a bit late.”
Kwarra clarified that the trial census would not “form the basis” of the 2023 census, and data generated would not be used to arrive at figures for the 2023 census.
His words, “For the avoidance of doubt, the trial census is not the actual enumeration of persons for the 2023 population and housing census.
“In other words, the outcome of the trial census will not form the basis of the 2023 census. Data generated during the trial census will not be used to arrive at figures for the 2023 census, which is going to be zero based and from information collected in April 2023,” he added.
“They will make money from the census, but when it’s time for them to give money to buy equipment, they will not give it to us because they know they won’t benefit from it”
Kwarra also said that the Commission had selected a total of 4,068 Enumeration Areas for the pilot census, which, according to him, will be used as a ‘census dress rehearsal’ to test run every stage of operation in the main census “from planning to implementation, as well as logistics arrangements and management, questionnaire design and format, training procedures, fieldwork operation, publicity, payment system, data processing, data tabulation and analysis.”
Whether the census holds next year, which will be the sixth since Nigeria’s independence, will answer the multifaceted questions peculiar to Nigeria’s diverse ethno-religious society, remains to be seen as some Nigerians have claimed that censuses in the country have “failed” and fell short of expectations.
Indeed, virtually all the census figures announced by the NPC had churned out so many controversies that they became a vexed issue in the country.
After Nigeria’s nascent independence in 1960 and the unnationalistic desire of “competing” regions in the country to stamp their relevance on the fledging nation, census figures published in 1962 and 1963 were discountenanced, as they (figures) were reported to have been flagrantly manipulated to suit the quest of the regions to use census data for political gain, and otherwise.
On its part, the 1973 census was fraught with random talks about using the census figures for ethnic domination, which scarily morphed eventually to disputations along ethnic lines. The figures announced were doggedly contested and the government of the day was left with no option but to nullify the results.
The 1991 census under the military dictatorship of former head of state, Ibrahim Babangida, was not spared, either. However, figures were not ballooned, but generated so much disquiet because of the alleged under-enumeration of Nigerians who were perhaps thought to be averse to the census.
Fifteen years later, the 2006 census was conducted, but because of the frosty relationship between the Federal Government and the Lagos State Government, it (census) was politicised and led to Lagos State conducting a parallel census after figures from the NPC indicated that Kano State was the most populous state in the country.
According to the NPC, Kano had 9.4million inhabitants in the state as against the 9million in Lagos. However, after its census, the Lagos State Government flaunted 17.5million to the world, and claimed it was the ‘genuine’ figure of residents in the state. That census by the state would later be declared ‘illegal’ by a tribunal.
Also, the 2006 NPC census highlighted the unmemorable episode when Christians in the south were disgruntled after they thought they were bamboozled because of the superior figure announced by the NPC for the Muslim-dominated North.
Critics have stated that census figures are used to give the North undue dominance over the South. They argue that developmental projects have been skewed to favour the North with census figures used as “cover-ups” or “weaponised” to influence most government decisions and privileges.
A social analyst, Onaiwu Oduwa, told The Point that its relevance notwithstanding, censuses should be done during peacetime, not war.
According to him, Nigeria is fighting a war against kidnapping and insecurity and those who would be deployed as enumerators were not safe to move around as they could become kidnap victims.
“Census is good, but it is done during peacetime, not war. At the moment, Nigeria is at war, and there’s insecurity everywhere. You cannot travel 45 km from where you are sitting to any direction in your vicinity without hearing about a kidnap story.
“There are killings everywhere, too. What we have not experienced since we were born is happening right before our eyes. You want to travel, the only safe means is by air, and you have to fast and pray if you choose to go by land,” he said.
Onaiwu, who is also a senior lecturer at the University of Benin, said, “The people you are going to use for the census, where are they going to pass? They could be kidnapped along the road, who would pay their ransom? Now, they have brought a law where the family of anyone who pays a ransom will be arrested.
“They should forget the census and solve the insecurity first so that those who will be used as enumerators may have where to drive through.”
The University don observed that considering the economic situation in the country, the almost N200bn earmarked for the census should have been given to ASUU for the funding of universities. He berated leaders for not “getting their priorities right in this country.”
According to him, “what does not matter is what they do first, while what matters, they put it behind.”
He added that for the NPC to obtain accurate census data, demographic areas where people were at any point in time mattered. He wondered how this could be achieved when students who were supposed to be in schools were at home.
“You are doing a census and my actual location is supposed to be at BDPA because I am a student, for instance, within the period of my study at that point in time.
“Because of the strike, I will be in my home in Abeokuta. Have you really captured the information about me? Because at a point in my life, if you are taking my demography as at the time you did that census, I should have been in school.
“But because of the strike, I am in a place where I am not supposed to be. So, how does it now add up,” he argued.
Shedding more light on the economic importance of the census, Onaiwu insisted that the headcount was not necessary because, in his assessment, the amount budgeted for the census would have been used to offset some of the amount the government was owing universities as “revitalisation” fund.
“If you are budgeting that N200 billion, give it to ASUU, and tell them that you know you are owing them N1.1t for five years (revitalisation fund), but we have N200billion…take, let’s inject it into the (university) system, so that next year we will add maybe another N100 billion into the budget for it. Let us do so for the next 10 years. Are we not going to move forward?” he said.
Onaiwu feared the government may not accede to that arrangement because politicians knew they would make illicit money from the census and would refuse to make money available to universities to purchase equipment for making them world-class.
“They will make money from the census, but when it’s time for them to give money to buy equipment, they will not give it to us because they know they won’t benefit from it,” he said.
As for using the data obtained during the census for planning and development purposes, Onaiwu disagreed, and told our correspondent that the “parameters to be inputted into the equation for planning are not in their right places.”
He said that because of the insecurity in a place like Chibok community, “some fictitious figures will get in there because the enumerators cannot find their ways in some areas.”
This, he continued, would defeat the whole essence of planning or making decisions with census data.
On the reasons census figures were disputed and what should be done, Onaiwu said it was an irony that the natural law which stated that “people tend to stay close to where there is water and move away from desert areas,” didn’t hold in Nigeria. In his opinion, it was the opposite in Nigeria.
“The southern part of the country has all the rain and water, and you are telling us that people in the south are fewer. Does that add up?” he said.
Additionally, he said he agreed that census figures had been weaponized to suit the whims and caprices of some regions, and called for what he termed a “forensic census” to avoid future disputes.
He said the exercise should be altogether cancelled and empirical analysis based on formulas be adopted for the country’s planning.
His words: “Census is not our problem at the moment. Okay, how can we do population projection? You can use the population of Nigeria which is roughly 240 million today.
“There are equations you can use to extrapolate and tell us that in the next 10 years the population of this country will be this figure or that, and with that, you can do your planning and other things.
“So, introduce that for the time being until you make this country safe for everybody,” he declared.
