We will never have true and correct census until the government agrees to link it with some sort of taxation as in other countries. Right now, census is linked to sharing of the national cake, creating every incentive for regions to falsify their numbers.

naijaking1:

We will never have true and correct census until the government agrees to link it with some sort of taxation as in other countries. Right now, census is linked to sharing of the national cake, creating every incentive for regions to falsify their numbers.

Would that be enough? Say a $10/year tax per capita of some sort collected by the FG that is deduced from each local government?

I don't think it would entirely do the trick. Raises the costs of inflating population figures, but probably not enough. Main thing is we'd need to entirely reduce the incentive to inflate.

Which means a federal government with limited power, money, and influence, no?

MAKE UNA FORGET ,, WETIN TRIP ME NA IM BE SAY NA WOMEN MAKE THE IGBOS JOIN LITERATE REGION

ekt_bear:

Would that be enough? Say a $10/year tax per capita of some sort collected by the FG that is deduced from each local government?

I don't think it would entirely do the trick. Raises the costs of inflating population figures, but probably not enough. Main thing is we'd need to entirely reduce the incentive to inflate.

Which means a federal government with limited power, money, and influence, no?

Organizing a tax based census should be easy, and helpful in fighting corruption.
For eaxmple, Nenwe is a local community of 5000, 3000 taxable adults. Nenwe is in Awgu LGA, Enugu state, and Enugu is one of the 36 states.

Nenwe like most Igbo communities already have local levies on its citizens for different developmental purposes, so the town knows to a high degree of accuracy its population. If Nenwe fowards the list to the LGA office in Awgu, Awgu will not only update its own data, but could decide on say 1 naira tax/adult.

And like they used to do it in the 1960s, the Nenwe list would go the Enugu state level, where the state could use the figure for all sorts of planning and of course could decide to tax another 1 naira.

You could use that figure to project tax, school enrollment, healthcare needs, etc. The figures would check mate each other, eg if you collected tax from 3000 people and someone tells you the population was 2000, you know its wrong.

At the moment in Nigeria census is only used for revenue sharing, and that's wrong.

we will never have true and correct census until it say what you want, na your people plenty pass

nothing wrong with the last one

@naijaking1: That is useful for places which are undercounted. But what of places which are overcounted? Why won't they just claim 5K tax base, but claim that only 2k are paying?

ekt_bear:

100% correct. Kano State population figures are fake for that reason. I wouldn't be surprised if it has the same population as Oyo State.

Man Kano, Sokoto ,Maiduguri, Kaduna and other northern cities are not rural areas.

Most southerners who go to the north for business don't go to rural areas. They stay in the cities.

So it is wrong to call Kano a rural area.

It is also wrong to compare Kano to OYO state.

Kano is more cosmopolitan then OYO state.

emmatok:

Man Kano, Sokoto ,Maiduguri, Kaduna and other northern cities are not rural areas.

Never claimed claimed that the cities are rural. . . that, by definition makes no sense.

It is also wrong to compare Kano to OYO state.

You do realize that Oyo has a GDP nearly $4 billion bigger (PPP) as of 2007 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nigerian_states_by_GDP) than Kano? So you are right, Oyo and Kano are not comparable. . . Oyo is in fact far greater. At least as far as economic productivity goes (unless this Canback research company was completely off.)

Kano is more cosmopolitan then OYO state.

Not sure what you mean by "cosmopolitan."

jude33084:

MAKE UNA FORGET  ,, WETIN TRIP ME NA IM BE SAY NA WOMEN MAKE THE IGBOS JOIN LITERATE REGION

Go and check the JAMB records. BBC simply used female literacy to drive home  a point about health and child vaccination. Igbo men are more literate than other Nigerian males. There are are threads here on NL that show that.

"cosmopolitan" does not mean "metropolitan"  @ emmatok


I think he was saying Kano is more urbanized and crowded.

PhysicsMHD:

cosmopolitan ≠ metropolitan  @ emmatok


I think he was saying Kano is more urbanized and crowded.

More crowded with people most of whom are either blind, crippled, diseased, beggarly or religiously fanatical.

Nchara:

More crowded with people most of whom are either blind, crippled, diseased, beggarly or religiously fanatical.

?

Have you lived there? Just wondering.

Anyways, I don't see what that has to do with anything.

Nchara:

The analysis makes sense in the following areas

1. Poverty more in the North than South
2. Literacy level highets among Igbo women (but male too)
3. South more developed than North (Abuja is exempt)
4. Health index (although Abia should have been as green as Imo and Anambra)
5. Oil and gas were rightly credited to where they mostly belong: Niger Delta and parts of Igboland

Does not make sense in these areas:
1. Population attributed to ethnic groups: We do not have data to support that.
2. Yoruba is not = Muslims and Christians only. They have as many animists if not more, than the East
3. Ondo was missed out in the oil and gas
4. Wealth was skewed. Anambra and Imo, Delta and Akwa Ibom should be as purple, if not more purple than Oyo

@ bold 4, you know this because. . .?

@ other 4, Akwa Ibom? Enlighten me.

@Nchara: These things happened for concrete reasons. The Hausa man is not inherently evil. He was certainly more advanced and sophisticated than you or I 300 years ago. Just things changed, the importance of those desert trade routes decreased, they had some bad leaders who didn't allow them to Westernize.

Try to be a bit more humane.

ekt_bear:

@Nchara: These things happened for concrete reasons. The Hausa man is not inherently evil. He was certainly more advanced and sophisticated than you or I 300 years ago. Just things changed, the importance of those desert trade routes decreased, they had some bad leaders who didn't allow them to Westernize.

Try to be a bit more humane.

Proof?

ekt_bear:

@Nchara: These things happened for concrete reasons. The Hausa man is not inherently evil. He was certainly more advanced and sophisticated than you or I 300 years ago. Just things changed, the importance of those desert trade routes decreased, they had some bad leaders who didn't allow them to Westernize.

Try to be a bit more humane.

Those things I listed are undeniable facts, but those facts do not negate the things (bad) that are inherent in the south as well. We are discussing the crowdedness of Kano. Not so? Everyone was sophisticated in their own ways 300 years ago. That some were able to better document theirs does not mean others were less sophisticated.

PhysicsMHD:

@ bold 4, you know this because. . .?

@ other 4, Akwa Ibom? Enlighten me.

I did read a certain WHO country report (2007, not so sure) where Abia was among the top 5 in health indices. Has things changed that much from 2007? There is nothing going on in Imo that is not going on in Abia and even more. I am from that general area.

naijaking1:
My understanding is that the whole south easthern Nigeria, from western Cameron to as far east as where we call Yorubaland today, up to and including most of Kogi, Benue, and up to the Adamawa mountains are inhabited by people who had the same ancestral relationship with the people we call Igbos today. There is no doubt even before the civil war, that the number of people who identified themselves as Igbos or as having Igbo ancestors was more than we have today.
Igbos are just Igbos, meaning the World. Like the Igbos themselves would ask, Igbo ebe k'isi bia---which part of the World did you come from.

1. "to as far east as where we call Yorubaland today" ? Where?
2.  "Most of Kogi, Benue," etc? By this you mean that Igalas claim Igbo ancestry? I have never read anything written or recorded from before or after the civil war that shows Igalas identifying with an Igbo origin or ancestry.

Nchara:

I did read a certain WHO country report (2007, not so sure) where Abia was among the top 5 in health indices. Has things changed that much from 2007? There is nothing going on in Imo that is not going on in Abia and even more. I am from that general area.

Okay then you're probably right. This same BBC report is claiming Ijaws are 10% of Nigeria, so I wouldn't be surprised if they got a few more things wrong.

naijaking1:

You're right.
Have you ever wondered why Yorubas and Igbos have the word for God? Orisa, Orisha, Olisa? Anthropologically, the vernacular word of important words such as God, tends to show common ancestry and history.
I drove drove from Abuja to Enugu last year, and was surprised to see towns named Ejula, Eboyi-Afor, and Achalla right in middle of Kogi state. These are Igbo names, and while no-one is claiming to adjust Igbo boundaries into Kogi, the native people of the area certainly know their history. My point is that we're probably more similar than we're different.

Maybe these are Igala names. There are not necessarily ethnic monopolies on certain kinds of names and words.

PhysicsMHD:

Proof?

What sort of proof are you looking for? Make it specific, and I'll try to support this position.

Also, I'm not at all convinced any more that Ibadan is less populated than Kano is:


See this report: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/dpu-projects/Global_Report/pdfs/Ibadan.pdf

Especially Section 3.2.

Ibadan was the largest city in sub-Saharan Africa up until 1970. The rise of Lagos would have slowed down its growth, but probably not killed it. Map #1 (on page 4) of the above report offers some evidence for that.

PhysicsMHD:

There is an Igala Igbo connection. There is an intermingling of northern anambra Igbo and Igalas. You hardly know who is Igbo there. The name Attah is both Igbo and Igalla.

There is a connection with Igbo and Yoruba linguistically speaking because they are members of the Niger-Congo language family.
Notice how Igbo women and Yoruba women wear ornate headscarves, while Igbo wear wrappers and Yoruba tend not to.

Until 1970, Ibadan was the largest city in sub-Saharan Africa (Lloyd et al. 1967). In 1952, it as estimated that the total area of the city was approximately 103.8 km2 (O. Areola, 1994: 99).   However, only 36.2 km2 was built up (see Map 1). This meant that the remaining 67 km2 were devoted to non-urban uses, such as farmlands, river floodplains, forest reserves and water bodies. These “non-urban land uses” disappeared in the 1960s: an aerial photograph in 1973 revealed that the urban landscape had completely spread over about 100 km2. The land area increased from 136 km2 in 1981 to 210-240 km2 in 1988-89 (Areola, 1994: 101). By the year 2000, it is estimated that Ibadan covered 400 km2 (Onibokun 1995: 7).

The growth of the built-up area during the second half of the 20 the century (from 40 km2 in the 1950s to 250 km2 in the 1990s) shows clearly that there has been an underestimation of the total growth of the city. In the 1980s, the Ibadan-Lagos expressway generated the greatest urban sprawl (east and north of the city), followed by the Eleiyele expressway (west of the city). Since then, Ibadan city has spread further into the neighbouring local government areas of Akinyele and Egbeda in particular.

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/dpu-projects/Global_Report/pdfs/Ibadan.pdf
Section 3.2

I'm no more sold on Kano City being more populated than Ibadan. If someone who has lived extensively in both and knows both like the back of his hand is willing to tell me this and support it with evidence, I'll believe it. But for now, I don't see any reason to believe it.

Nchara:

PhysicsMHD:

There is an Igala Igbo connection. There is an intermingling of northern anambra Igbo and Igalas. You hardly know who is Igbo there. The name Attah is both Igbo and Igalla.

There has been mingling among various groups. It depends on who borders you.

Igbo-Igala
Igbo-Bini
Igbo-Ibibio
Igbo-Idoma
Igbo-Kalabari
Igbo-Ijaw
Igbo-Isoko

etc etc etc

ekt_bear:

What sort of proof are you looking for? Make it specific, and I'll try to support this position.

Also, I'm not at all convinced any more that Ibadan is less populated than Kano is:


See this report: http://www.ucl.ac.uk/dpu-projects/Global_Report/pdfs/Ibadan.pdf

Especially Section 3.2.

Ibadan was the largest city in sub-Saharan Africa up until 1970. The rise of Lagos would have slowed down its growth, but probably not killed it. Map #1 (on page 4) of the above report offers some evidence for that.

Well, I thought you would have specifics, since you believe they were more advanced and sophisticated. Perhaps I'm missing something, but in 1700, what was so advanced about the Hausas? All their cities would be conquered a hundred years later rather quickly by an alien group (Fulani) that was not significantly more technologically advanced than them, so how advanced and sophisticated were they really?

As for Ibadan vs. Kano, it's not really clear since there are not accurate census figures and it's not clear whether the entire metropolitan area or just the center is being counted for both cities in the different censuses.

Nchara:

PhysicsMHD:

There is an Igala Igbo connection. There is an intermingling of northern anambra Igbo and Igalas. You hardly know who is Igbo there. The name Attah is both Igbo and Igalla.

EzeUche:

There has been mingling among various groups. It depends on who borders you.

Igbo-Igala
Igbo-Bini
Igbo-Ibibio
Igbo-Idoma
Igbo-Kalabari
Igbo-Ijaw
Igbo-Isoko

etc etc etc

I know there is an Igala-Igbo connection. That's not in dispute. I just don't see how one can assert that an "Igbo-sounding" Igala word must derive from Igbo contact or ancestry. If Igala was in a different language group I could see it, but since it's not the claim seems presumptuous. If you actually look at Igala words and names you might begin to realize that there are such a large number of "Igbo-like" and "Yoruba-like" words that if those two groups (Igbo and Yoruba) were allowed to claim that this or that Igala word was as a result of Igbo or Yoruba ancestry, the Igalas would have much less left and would apparently be some sort of Yoruba-Igbo hybrid, which they actually aren't.

PhysicsMHD:

Well, I thought you would have specifics, since you believe they were more advanced and sophisticated. Perhaps I'm missing something, but in 1700, what was so advanced about the Hausas? All their cities would be conquered a hundred years later rather quickly by an alien group (Fulani) that was not significantly more technologically advanced than them, so how advanced and sophisticated were they really?

Long distance trade? Writing? Kano being a major cosmopolitan trade center even at that time seems like a big deal to me. I dunno, perhaps I overstated my case.

There's not much evidence for major centers of Hausa writing prior to the Fulani conquest, actually. A few writings here and there, but nothing really substantial.

http://books.google.com/books?id=gfH2A6AhZ7wC&pg=PA204&dq=early+hausa+poetry&hl=en&ei=WbObTfvVFIuhtwfivKXUBw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CD4Q6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=early%20hausa%20poetry&f=false

In any case, it shows that they chose to adapt to Arabic writing, something which other groups in Nigeria could have done with European languages if they had decided to.


However, after the Fulani invasion, thousands of scholarly works,  many of them religious, were produced by Uthman dan Fodio and his followers.


As for long distance trade, that seems to have more to do with Arabs than with the Hausas themselves:

http://books.google.com/books?id=bOdSMvlA7zsC&pg=PA40&lpg=PA40&dq=early+hausa+writing&source=bl&ots=oPMnTysriC&sig=uNHlw_bFaxxCaeqt87wNUnRVuyc&hl=en&ei=Cq-bTduuLdGjtgeP0um5Bw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CDMQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q&f=false

Anyway, there were other major trade centers in Nigeria outside of Hausaland in 1700.

PhysicsMHD:

1. "to as far east as where we call Yorubaland today" ? Where?
2. "Most of Kogi, Benue," etc? By this you mean that Igalas claim Igbo ancestry? I have never read anything written or recorded from before or after the civil war that shows Igalas identifying with an Igbo origin or ancestry.

The point is that Igbo influence traverses Anioma and other currently Igbo speaking people west of the Niger.
A basic anthropological unity between Igbos and their immediate neighbours cannot be denied by any serious scholar. Igalas clearly have Igbo ancestry, or Igbos clearly have Igala ancestry. Same goes for Ibibios, Efiks, Idomas, Urobos, and yes Yorubas.