splashbaby:
What progress are they making apart from actualising a dying dream of a Biafra state within Nigeria. Igbos are busy trying to scuttle the happiness of a great Nigeria with the support for an unpopular president... Thankfully they have no say in this one.

splashbaby:
Obviously you don't visit home often. The Biafra flags adorn homes all over Abia and Imo state...the locals loved Biafra my brother...those folks are just minority like you... Nwazurike has serious followership in the east... Do you pretend not to know what you know?

Ihuomadinihu:

Pls move over to the politics page and continue your campaign. We have noticed you!

Radoillo:


Smh. Massob put flags on houses and poles on my street some years back. Most people didn't give a shit and just ignored the flag, including my dad who just laughed and left the flag they stuck to the electric pole just in front of our house there. Only strangers like you see the flags and get apprehensive. the locals scarcely take notice of them.

I repeat: most dudes of my age do not care about Biafra. Even massob's last outing in Enugu was a poorly attended farce.

splashbaby:
Have you heard about "association by consent"? continue playing the Ostrich. How many of those youth have come out to denounce the activities of those chalatarns called Biafrans?... None.. What you don't know, you can never defend. Do you think "never do well" will have a Radio station, passport, money, driver licence and representative to the United Nation to promote Biafra sectarian plans...capital NO!

splashbaby:
I have been here since 2008, six whooping years before you open this account. I am not here to impress anyone...if you are comfortable with fantasies and lies, good for you.

splashbaby:
What you don't know, you can never defend. Do you think "never do well" will have a Radio station, passport, money, driver licence and representative to the United Nation to promote Biafra sectarian plans...capital NO!

Ihuomadinihu:

I guess you know Igbos more than they know themselves. Honestly,this is not your problem. Nigeria has far greater issues,biko.

splashbaby:
It has been dead on arrival...Igbos pressing the self destruct button since the 60s...funny enough its becoming a cancer jumping from one generation to the other...I give up!

Ihuomadinihu:

You have issues dear,you are the only one stretching this ignorance!

splashbaby:
Finally I give up...as usual una no go ever gree... Even with embarrassing truth!

Ihuomadinihu:

Thank you for giving up your obsession with biafra. Your comments are irrelevant and insignificant to this thread.

Afam4eva:
What an interesting thread turned political by splashbaby.

I think most of the comments that have been made on this thread are uninformed (no offense). It is one thing to state a personal opinion and a totally different thing to present it as a fact. What I see people doing is telling us why their ethnic group has more population or is the most spoken. I think i will stick to what I think and not what I know for sure as no recent census in Nigeria has captured the population of every ethnic group and the number of speakers.

Personally, I don't think Hausa is the largest ethnic group in Nigeria as we tend to muddle the population of Fulani's and other Northern minorities as Hausa. However, I think Hausa is arguably the most spoken language in the North. Hardly do you find any Northerner irrespective of tribe who doesn't speak some Hausa's. I also noticed that southerners who travel to the north tend to learn Hausa than a Northerner who travels to the south.

I think either Igbo or Yoruba have the largest population in Nigeria but I'm forced to give a slight edge to the Igbo's for reasons that others have stated here such as the population of Igbo's outside Igboland. However, I think there are more Yoruba speakers than there are Igbo speakers.

Raiders:
Pidgin English is the most spoken language in Nigeria.

Fulaman198:


Umm no, I'm not wrong about the states, Fulfulde is most spoken in Adamawa (which extends into Cameroon as well), Gombe and Taraba states. It is not spoken at all nearly much in the NorthWest. Adamawaare is the dialect of the Fulani spoken where I am from.

Fulaman198:


Stop speaking sellout jargon, the reason why Hausa for example is hosted on BBC is because they actually cherish and respect their language, unlike you. It's important for people to know their native languages, otherwise how can they call themselves Africans. No outsider (be it white or Asian) has respect for an African who can't even speak their native language. There is a reason foreigners go to countries like Mali or Senegal for their "African experience" because foreigners don't want to experience wannabe Westernised bullcrap.

If you have that slave sellout mentality, kindly keep it to yourself.

Fulaman198:


That's a lie

For one You are referring to "Fulanis" in the North Western part of Nigeria not the North Eastern part. Two very different regions. The same Fulani dialect spoken in North Eastern Nigeria is also spoken in Eastern Niger, Chad, Cameroon, Central African Republic and Sudan.

Fulaman198:



I wish Fulfulde (Fulani language) was the most spoken, but sadly we can't have it our way. But the truth is Hausa is the most spoken language in Nigeria. We must remember that the majority of Nigeria's 250 ethnic groups are found in the "Core North". Most of these other ethnicities understand and speak Hausa very well.

I'm glad you like the Hausa language, I'm not really a fan of it as I prefer Fulfulde, but I respect the Hausa people because even BBC promotes their language. They are not afraid to say "no" to white people that they refuse to speak their language. I admire those who are proud of their respective cultures.

oladosuphemmy:
HOW ON EARTH WILL SOMEONE TELL ME THAT IGBO IS MORE SPOKEN THAN YORUBA.
THE POPULATION ALONE TELLS YOU ALL YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT THE MOST SPOKEN LANGUAGE.
DEFINITELY HAUSAS HAS THE MOST POPULATION FOLLOWED BY THE YORUBAS AND THEN THE IGBO.
LAGOS IS ABOUT 15MIL IN POPULATION AND MORE THAN 90PEFCENT OF THIS POPULATION SPEAKS YORUBA, NOT TO TALK OF OYO STATE, EKITI, ONDO, OGUN, KWARA, OSUN, PART OF KOGI, EDO, BENIN REPUBLIC, COTE VORE, TOGO, THERE IS EVEN A COMMUNITY IN BRAZIL THAT SPEAKS YORUBA
IF YOU ARE STILL CONFUSED PLS READ THE LIST OF THE MOST SPOKEN NATIVE LANGUAGES IN THE WORLD HERE
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers
HERE WE SEE YORUBA AND HAUSA AMONG THE MOST SPOKEN NATIVE LANG WITH THE EXCEPTION OF IGBO.
PLS, MAKE SURE U CARRYOUT YOUR RESEARCH CAREFULLY, DILIGENTLY, AND ACCURATELY BEFORE POSTING HERE SO AS NOT TO MIS-INFORM NAIRALANDERS.

scholes0:


Fulaman we can't possibly believe a book written in 1921 by some colonialist who must have made numerous errors, is true in 2015 can we?


This is the result of the 1961 Census. The Yoruba and Hausa populations were neck to neck at the time.
Hausa population might have surged ahead between 1961 and now, but Yoruba would still very much solidly in 2nd place, knowing fully well that they have a higher birth rate compared to Igbos who at the time had a much less population, not to even talk of now.

Since you are Fulani, the fula number might also surprise you. I was personally pleasantly surprised, that we had that many beautiful Fulanis in Nigeria, as at 1963. If there were almost 5 million Fulas at the time, they are most probably around 15 million by now.... lets even assume 70% of them can't speak Fulfulde, that still leaves about 4.5 Million of them who can- which is definitely more than the 1.9 Million quoted in the OP's article.

Anyone interested in the full list can PM me, or quote me and demand for the rest.

lawani:
In Niger and Kwara states, Yoruba is lingua franca, more or less all natives speak the language. In Niger they also speak Hausa. In Kogi and Kwara they dont speak Hausa. Plateau speaks to a large extent, Benue dont really. So, Niger is as much Hausa speaking as Yoruba. Yoruba is native to the place. Nupes and Bariba speak Yoruba as lingua franca while there are indigenous Yoruba in Niger state. Remove Benue, Kogi, Kwara who dont speak Hausa, then you have 16 states who speak Hausa but they are not all Hausa. Hausa land is 6 states in the NW and then SW Niger republic. Kaduna is peopled and owned by Nupoid peoples. Gwaris and etc. They are not Hausas. They have their languages but speak Hausa. Kanuri is in the NE, then there are still over a hundred other languages in the North but one can say Hausa is lingua franca in 14 or 15 states but not more than 6 or 7 states is Hausa land, then SW Niger but Hausa language is used by BBC, VOA and etc. I think Gombe speaks Fulfulde. Yoruba is spoken indigenously in 6 SW and three NC states of Kogi, Kwara and Niger, then in 2 SS states of Edo and Delta but it is full lingua franca in SW, Niger and Kwara making 8 against up to 14 for Hausa. Then it is lingua franca in North Edo and Western Kogi, The Igala speak a Yoruba dialect and are the largest group in Kogi. For Igbo, the language is in 5 SE states as full lingua franca, then most of Rivers and Delta East, making 6. No other Igbo speaking city is in any other place. So as far as Nigeria is concerned, it is Hausa, Yoruba, then Igbo as per widely spoken language. Now, move to ethnic groups. The Yoruba will be number one for controlling fully 7 states with an average 85 percent population. Then controlling a third of Edo and Kogi. So let us just say Yoruba fill up 8 states in Nigeria. Hausas fill up six states or seven. Igbos fill up five or six. Then the population of SW is like double SE, use any indicator, WAEC enrolment, SIM registration, recharge card use and etc, the SW bests all others. I believe the population is highest followed by NW and I believe Kaduna population is higher than Kano's. If we move to outside Africa, it will be where Yoruba surpasses Hausa. Aborisha worldwide are over 100 million of which majority are South Americans and many understand Yoruba to varying degrees, the Awos understand it to the extent that a Catholic priest understand Latin even moreso. So, Yoruba is the language of close to 100 million in West Africa and another 100 million in the diaspora who use it to varying degrees. So in Nigeria, Hausa is number 1, in West Africa, Hausa and Yoruba will drag it since all of Benin republic speak Yoruba and parts of Togo. Yoruba land extend into Ghana where there are 50 Yoruba towns. The Ewe are Ife people who dont speak Yoruba but are same with us. With news channels, Hausa is number one but with foreigners, it is Yoruba because of the popular theology and the diaspora community. Igbo will come third in all instances.

Then nowhere in Yoruba land can we say for sure that Igbos are more than Hausas. Lets be realistic. Nowhere at all but Igbos are more integrated with Yorubas than Hausas despite being new arrivals. In our family, two of my cousins married Igbo. When my cousin's son whose mom is Igbo visits me for instance, my customers will conclude he is my son back then in Ife because the resemblance is striking. His Mom is from Enugu while his Granddad is my Dad's younger brother. We dont have Hausa members of the family. A younger cousin also married an Igbo man from Anambra but as residents of SW, Igbos and Hausa population will be similar. So, no need for Igbos to say they are always second in all cities. That is not true at all. Maybe inside certain markets though.