Population Census 2005 (for Nigeria)

Seun, the ministry of internal affairs should pay you o, for all these publicity

@seun sorry to dissapoint you but nobody will be counted. we will only be tagged with purple fingerpaint and at the end they will choose the number that best maintains the staus quo and if that has changed they will choose the most politically acceptable number.

NigeriaSat-1 is a waste.  It should reveal their lies by showing us how a village with 40 roofs has a population of 5000.

LAGOS, 8 Aug 2005 (IRIN) - When Nigeria conducts a long-overdue national census in November, no data will be collected showing the religious or ethnic origins of its citizens.

Africa’s most populous country of more than 126 million people, split between a mainly Muslim north and largely Christian south, is frequently plagued by ethnic and religious upheavals.

The authorities fear that highlighting those divisions in a national headcount will only inflame tensions.

A meeting of the advisory National Council of State, comprising the country’s 36 state governors and former heads of state, called by President Olusegun Obasanjo in January, had advised against considering religion and ethnicity in the census.

"After exhaustive discussion, it was resolved that, as it was not on the questionnaire for the 1991 census, the issue of ethnicity and religion would also not feature on the questionnaire for the 2005 national census," the body said in a statement after the meeting.

The advice was accepted by the government; the head of the National Population Commission, Samaila Makama, subsequently justified the decision as a way of avoiding the political acrimony that has surrounded all earlier attempts at a detailed population breakdown.

"Since each religious and ethnic group would prefer numerical superiority over the other, it might be safer to ignore religion and ethnicity since there would be the temptation by each group to explore ways to have an edge over the other," said Makama.

However, rival religious and ethnic interest groups appear united in their demand that religion, and ethnicity, should be considered.

Both Christian and Muslim groups have threatened to boycott the census – a potentially massive blow to its credibility - if the government does not review its position.

Peter Akinola, president of the Christian Association (CAN) of Nigeria and leader of the Anglican Church announced in June that his members had been directed to shun the census if religion and ethnicity were not on the questionnaire.

"Any national census which falls short of that is not worth its salt and will not be accepted," said Akinola. CAN groups the major Christian denominations, including the fast-growing Pentecostal churches.

Similar threats have also come from the Conference of Islamic Organisations (CIO) - made up of 27 Islamic associations – which accuses Obasanjo, a southern Christian, of running an anti-Muslim government.

The group has said it will boycott the census if it was not designed to "reflect all necessary data concerning Nigerians, including ethnicity and religious inclinations, in order to dispel suspicion and provide accurate information."

Nigeria has had a difficult history of conducting population counts. The first census conducted by British colonial rulers in 1952-53, and used to determine political constituencies and the allocation of resources, found the north had the largest share of the population.

A subsequent count in 1962 was plagued by widespread inflation of figures leading to the cancellation of the result. Another census held a year later was accepted after bitter wrangling and allegations of manipulation, the fallout of which contributed to the political crises that resulted in the 1967-70 civil war.

Yet another attempt in 1973 was cancelled amid claims and counter-claims again of manipulation of the figures by the regions seeking political advantage.

Under military ruler Gen Ibrahim Babangida, who organised the 1991 census – the last successful exercise - the decision was first taken to remove religion and ethnicity from the categories to be counted.

That year’s census produced a population figure of 86.5 million, estimated to have since exceeded 126 million at an annual growth rate of more than three percent.

After winning a second four-year term in 2003, Obasanjo now feels confident enough to take on the census challenge.

But his six years in power has seen regular outbursts of ethnic, religious and communal violence in which thousands have died. The adoption of the strict Islamic legal code or Shari’ah by more than a dozen states in the north has upset neighbouring Christian communities, intermittently triggering sectarian bloodletting.

In the oil-rich southern Niger Delta, years of unrest over pollution and the lack of development spending has overtime translated into a political demand by ethnic militants for more local control over oil resources. In the parts of southeast Nigeria dominated by ethnic Igbos, calls for a repeat of the attempted secession that resulted in civil war are gaining acceptance.

In the north, political leaders including serving state governors are insisting that population and land mass will continue to be used as the basis for allocation of federal revenue, while at the same time insisting that religion and ethnicity should not be counted.

Speaking after a meeting of northern governors last year, Kaduna State Governor Ahmed Makarfi said states in the region would boycott the census if the two issues were included in the questionnaire.

But political leaders from the country’s mainly Christian centre and southeast, after a meeting last week in the capital, Abuja, issued a statement advising the National Population Commission to include religion and ethnicity among the issues required in the census.

"We believe that these would assist, in no small measure, in implementing any meaningful national development plan," said the statement, also signed by state governors from the two regions.

Political analysts believe the strong feelings being expressed on the coming census leaves Obasanjo with a delicate job - with potentially explosive consequences.

"All these pulling-at-the-seams of the nation by rival groups could combine with the census issue and create a combustible mix for Nigeria," analyst Ike Onyekwere told IRIN.

"In the end it is for Obasanjo to decide if he wants a proper census or one that is politically expedient," Onyekwere added.

NIGERIA: Planned census facing boycott threats, a UN Report

before i finish this whole thing, i must say, Kodewrita just made my day, by making me laugh. !!

I think its a big mistake not to include the two infos in the demographic data.  It is indeed a required demographic data to know how many Yorubas, hausas, Ibos etc are there (and how many christians, muslims etc) ,

I believe whoever says these should not be included should also abandon the federal character princinple, which was based on ethnic and race diversity. In essence, it looks like OBJ and co have aligned to continue to cheat Nigerians with the old 1961 demographic data. If we can do it in previous sensus prior 1991, why can't we do it now? Something odious is being protected at all cost.

Well, it has started.