The Nigerian census figures have been said to be inaccurate
and in some cases inflated for economic and political reasons. National
socio-economic and political statistics have been major issues of debate when
matters relating to actual census figures come up. Census figures conflict with
socio-economic realities across the country. Of interest are the arguments that
exist on issues like more Muslims than Christians in the south than in the core
north; and more Christians are perceived to be in northern Nigeria than in the
south or that there are more women than men. These insinuations are worth
probing and correcting. It could be true.
Census figures have not been realistic and supportive of
government programmes and projects. For example Lagos landscape was bedeviled
with refuse heaped up across the streets before the 2006 national population
census when the population of Lagos was said to be about seven million. A
parallel census carried out in 2006 by the state government revealed a
population of about seventeen million against the federal government’s figure
of twelve million for the same exercise. What it meant was that there was
always on a monthly basis, a refuse backlog of ten million citizens unattended
to with cumulative effects, not because there was no fund, but because of wrong
or manipulated census information. Lagos state’s refuse disposal logistics for
seventeen million people helped in effective planning and logistics which brought
back the beauty and aquatic splendour of the center of excellence.
The nation’s
population figures for 2006 showed an average increase of 50%. For example Ogun
and Ondo grew at a growth rate of about 53 - 56% over the same period (1991-2006).
While it is logical to say that the influx of people from Lagos to Ogun could
be responsible, as a lot of people live in Ogun state but work in Lagos, but one
wonders what the reason or the driving force for the same percentage increase
in Ondo state population can be attributed to.
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| Mohamodu Buhari- President Elect | |
World over, population is higher along coast lines because of
ease of communication and agricultural potentials and opportunities, but in Nigeria
the reverse is the case. Population statistics reflect illogical figures in
deep forests, deserts and un-inhabited coastal areas of the country. It has similarly been said that social and
economic laws don’t work in Nigeria. For example, one would expect a drop in
price of essential products when more goods are in circulation in Nigeria, but
the business sense in Nigeria is to create artificial scarcity. Population,
market and essential services statistics are incorrect, distorted and generally
insensitive to household conclusions. All statistics are generated to local
government geographies beclouding the large scale analysis and generation of knowledge
that could help underpin the intricacies of household level socio-economic
indicators that could be used for decision support and governance.
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| Bern Omo Akhigbe FNIS- President, Nigerian Institution of Surveyors |
Are the Nigerian census figures true or cooked? The fundamental
issues about our national census data are weighty and deeper than mare visual
assessments of records. It borders on the structures that are supposed to provide
background knowledge for planning and logistics, effective population counting,
statistical analysis and dissemination of potent information and knowledge. It is
about the ease of use and the creation of packages logically directed at
specific application areas for problem analysis, decision support and
governance. The knowledge, to be useable must be sensitive to household scales.
Advanced societies have learnt to carry out national statistical projects at
household scales because of its sensitivity to revealing the indicators of poverty,
affluence, unemployment, food, housing and transport shortages, educational
needs and gaps. Aggregating information for the public at local government social
scale could be intentionally aimed at covering up the actual figures that summed
up to each local government census figures.
Census data on its own cannot reveal much without marrying
it with other socio-economic and environmental variables and modelling their
relationships across space which will provide resourceful and easy to use tools
for decision support and governance. Nigeria needs to be mapped at a very large
scale to manage the huge land area and ever increasing population as shown from
current statistics. It requires making new large scale topographical map of the
country, provide medium scale maps of natural resources to include areas like agriculture,
geology, marine, conservation, wildlife, transport, physical plans etc.
Getting resource data to manage our country requires efforts
at re-assessing and rebuilding the institutional arrangements, structures and capacities
put in place for making and publishing our maps; assessments of our mapping
needs using satellite imageries and existing small and medium scale maps as
guide to make the work easier. It requires adequate and appropriate funding
despite the global and local economic recessions. A well mapped country will be
able to plan her activities, execute programmes and save money and time. Nations
and cities with right knowledge to manage their territories are today called
smart nations and cities. The gains from mapping are quite enormous and are
both tangible and intangible. The resources to map Nigeria are available and
must be annexed to usher in national resourcefulness, timely and cost effective
projects and above all help us take stock of all that is included both in and
within our space, our actions and relationships within the environment and finally
provide basis for our collective future.
Many have argued, and rightly so, that corruption remains perhaps
Nigeria’s biggest problem. The hope, therefore, is that President
Buhari, “Mr. Anti-corruption”, can deal with corruption and get the
Nigerian state to function. So, why has the Nigerian state been unable
to tame corruption and why has the state itself defied many attempts to
make it functional? The answer is simple: We can’t have a functional
state without a functional nation. Clearly, we can’t witness the rebirth
of this nation, and by extension the Nigerian state, without unmaking
Nigeria. In unmaking Nigeria, we have to deal with the fundamental fault
lines that throw our nation into episodic convulsions and define our
attitude to our common patrimony.- May 29, 2015 : Chido Onumah
