₦airaland Forum

4) THE '2ND LANGUAGE HAUSA SPEAKING' CHRISTIANS OF THE UPPER MIDDLEBELT AND CORE-NORTH.
(around 25 million people).

This is the largest 'minority ethnic group' socio-culture in Nigeria and it comprises of people from about 200 different ethnic groups who are related to each other and have evolved a somewhat similar socio-culture over the decades.
This is probably the most ethnically diverse region in Africa and majority of Nigeria's so called 'over 250 ethnic groups' which most people do not believe exists, are actually found here.

Some of the largest ethnic groups within this region are the Berom, Kataf, Bajju, Jukun, Tarok, Eggon-Mada, Mumuye, Ngas, Gbagyi, Bachama, Kilba, Marghi, Kambari, Dakarkari, Sayawa, Karekare, Tangale, Chamba, Bura e.t.c

The people of this socio-culture dominate the states of Plateau, Taraba and the FCT, 40- 60% of the population of Nasarawa, Adamawa, Kaduna (Southern Kaduna) & Gombe (Southern Gombe) states, 20-30% of Kebbi, Borno, Bauchi (the southern parts) and Niger (the northern & Eastern parts) states, then around 10% of Yobe state (Yobe south).
You also have the indigenous Hausa-fulani Christians who number a few millions and could be tagged along this socio-culture. They are mostly found in Zaria (northern Kaduna), Kano & Katsina.

The people of this socio-culture are largely misindentified as Hausa fulanis or Hausa Christians by most Southerners who could and still hardly can tell the difference between these people and the core-northern muslims.
The inability to make out this difference may not be entirely blamed on Southerners as most of the people of this socio-culture speak Hausa as a fluent 2nd language, sometimes answer Hausa names and have somewhat been in political alliance with the core-northern muslims from time to time.

The people of this socio-culture are very good farmers and together with the people of Benue are the food basket of the nation. They supply majority of the farmed food products in Nigeria.

The people of this socio-culture have a very strong influence in the Federal civil service and military/para-military forces through which they had a strong influence in the politics of the nation during the era of military rule.

The people of this socio-culture are the most friendly and welcoming people in Nigeria who hardly discriminate against anyone except the neighbouring Hausa fulanis whom they have been having territorial and expansionist problems with for the last decades.

The people of this socio-culture are the least materialistic group and most law abiding citizens of Nigeria and that is why the people of this socio-culture have the lowest criminality records in Nigeria. Very common crimes all over Nigeria like kidnapping, ritual killings, 419, Yahoo Yahoo (internet fraud), fake products, drug smuggling e.t.c are almost unheard of among the indigenes of this socio-culture.

The setbacks and negative stereotypes of this socio-culture are extreme socialism which other more capitalistic socio-cultures see as laziness. The people of this socio-culture appear to be the worst group of business people in Nigeria, they appear not to be good in business at all.

Drunkenness and high sexual laxity/looseness is also included.
Naivety and lack of direction as a people is also a major problem. They appear as the largest group of politically 'directionless' people in Nigeria.

Loss of language and culture as most of the minority indigenous languages of this socio-culture face serious threats of extinction due to the wide usage of Hausa language as a lingua franca.



5) THE WESTERN NIGER-DELTANS OR WESTERN SOUTHERN MINORITIES
(around 15 million people).

These are southern Nigerian minority ethnic groups. The Urhobos, Binis, Ijaws, Isokos, Esans, Ogonis and Afemais who dominate Edo, Delta, Bayelsa and the southern part of Rivers State. They have evolved an urban and social culture which tends to be quite different from the Eastern Niger-deltans or Eastern Southern minorities of Akwa-Ibom & Cross River states.

For starters, this is the pidgin English capital of Nigeria and Africa. The widely spoken and funny pidgin or broken English which has become the defacto lingua franca of Nigeria and spread to other parts of West Africa originates from this area and has it's vocabulary readily and regularly updated by the people of this socio-culture.

The mastery of this language has given the people of this socio-culture an advantage of naturally being the funniest group of people in Nigeria. They have produced the best and most numerous successful comedians in Nigeria. They can be called the pioneers of the comedy industry in Nigeria.

The people of this socio-culture are also very naturally down to earth, funny, friendly and social, hence they also have a strong presence in the entertainment industry and have produced numerous successful singers and actors.

The people of this socio-culture are fairly good to very good in Business, Education and Religion where they have a strong influence in Pentecostal Christianity.
They are the most influential minority group socio-culture in Nigeria and this is enhanced by their territory being heavily blessed with Crude oil & gas (Nigeria's major income source).

The setbacks and negative stereotypes of this socio-culture are tendencies of being very loud, naturally aggressive, insulting, quarrelsome, troublesome and wild.
This nature seems to have given birth to a culture of militancy which could be interpreted as self-determination on their parts.

A culture of thuggery and a strong sense of self entitlement to crude oil ownership has evolved a culture of extortion whereby non-indigenous peoples and businesses are being exorbitantly extorted and financially molested by the locals in their hometowns (deve money).

Witchcraft, Human trafficking and prostitution on an international scale by a section of the people of this socio-culture (Edo) is also included.
Drunkenness and drug abuse are also included and this is evident in the local manufacture and wide consumption of renowned dangerous local brews and drug mixtures like 'Ogogoro', 'monkey tail' e.t.c.

Loss of language is also included as pidgin English is rapidly replacing the indigenous minority languages as the mother tongues of the people.



00)
Above are the 5 main socio-cultures of Nigeria. The remaining 5 socio-cultures below appear more or less like an appendage or hybrid socio-culture of the 5 socio-cultures above.
Their positives and negatives are basically the same with those above or are like a combination or retraction of that of the major socio-cultures above. They can hardly stand on their own, but it will not be fair to group them under the socio-cultures above because their people have some uniqueness they have evolved overtime and they may/will also reject outright classifications under the subcultures above.



6) THE CHRISTIANS FROM TRIBES OF THE LOWER MIDDLEBELT
(around 10 million people).

These are basically the Tivs, Idomas, Igedes and Christians of Igala, Egbirra, Nupe & Bariba extraction.
They form the majority of Benue state and a minority of Kogi, Kwara & Niger (Niger south).
They (Tivs in particular) are also found in extreme southern tips of Nasarawa & Taraba, but they are sometimes regarded as settlers in both states and do integrate completely with the number (4) socio-culture in both states.

The major difference between this socio-culture and that of the number (4) is the use of Hausa language as a lingua franca in the latter.
The people of this socio-culture have not been influenced by the spread of Hausa language as a lingua franca or 2nd language in spite of being politically classified as Northern Nigerians since the beginning of colonialism.
This can be said to be as a result of the larger size of their ethnic groups, their richer and stronger cultures, and their closeness, strong cultural similarities and shared ancestries with the ethnic groups of Southern Nigeria.
Sometimes, one wonders how these people found themselves classified as Northern Nigerians, because they share almost nothing in common with other northerners and so much more in common culturally, historically and ancestrally with Southern Nigerians.

Pre independence and some decades post independence, the people of this socio-culture were heavily being tied and gradually drifting towards the number (2) and (4) socio-cultures. This was because they had their regional and subsequent state capitals in Kaduna, Jos & Ilorin which were largely dominated by the number (2) and (4) socio-cultures. Thus they were migrating to these urban areas and becoming gradually absorbed in these dominant socio-cultures.

This trend was largely reversed or curtailed with the creation of Benue & Kogi states.

This socio-culture is like a hybrid between socio-culture number (4) and the Southern socio-cultures or it could be reversely said that socio-culture number (4) is the hybrid between this socio-culture and that of number 1 (the core-northern muslims).

The addition and subtraction of the positives and negatives of the socio-culture of the Christians of the Upper middlebelt (4) and that of Southern socio-cultures are the positives and negatives of this socio-culture.

For example, the people of this socio-culture are more educated, widely travelled and capitalistic than the Upper middlebelt Christians, at the same time have more criminal tendencies, tend to be more materialistic, aggressive and tribalistic than the Upper middlebelt Christians.
They are far less criminally minded and more law abiding than Southern Nigerians, at same time less educated and less travelled/exposed as Southern Nigerians. They are basically a hybrid.

This has somehow made the people of this socio-culture the most misidentified people in Nigeria.
Many Southerners still ignorantly address them as Hausas when they naturally speak no word of Hausa unless they learn it as a foreign language same way Southerners learn it and have absolutely nothing in common with Hausas
WHILE
Core-northern muslims easily see and address the people of this socio-culture as Inyamiri (Igbos/Southerners) because to the average core-northern muslim, it is impossible to not speak Hausa language and still be a Northerner.

THE 10 UNOFFICIAL SOCIO-CULTURAL REGIONS OF NIGERIA.

Post colonialism, the different and diverse peoples of Nigeria have rapidly evolved into very different social lives, value systems, orientations, mental capacities and behaviours.

Religion, ethnicity, urbanization, political classifications and political agitations have become the major reasons why erstwhile unrelated peoples have come under the same socio-cultural space and also same reasons why erstwhile related peoples have come under different socio-cultural spaces.

The present day Geo-political zones that we have do not aptly capture these socio-cultural regional differences, they only manage to give a clue.

Here are the 8 unofficial socio-cultural regions of today's Nigeria which have evolved over the years and are now largely the basis of most people's daily interactions, familiarisations, identifications, socializations, political inclinations e.t.c

Disclaimer* Many may not agree with a lot of the points in this write-up and will want to make corrections on certain things in comments which is very much welcomed. This write-up is not a final authority on these topics. It is just a combination of popular knowledge and generally held perceptions and stereotypes.



1) THE CORE-NORTHERN MUSLIM SOCIO-CULTURE
(around 55 million people).

This is the largest of the socio-cultures of Nigeria.
Ethnically, the peoples of this socio-culture are the Hausa-fulanis, Kanuris, Shuwa Arabs and Hausanized tribes of Bauchi & Yobe. They dominate the states of Sokoto, Zamfara, Kebbi, Jigawa, Kano, Katsina, Yobe, Borno, Bauchi, Northern Kaduna (Zaria), Northern Gombe and small parts of Adamawa & Taraba.

These peoples who originally are diverse by origin and cultures but have over the years blended into one social life and societal values which is heavily united by the Islamic religion.
They are all ruled traditionally by Islamic emirates, hence the reason why religion is taken extremely serious by these peoples in the same fashion as one can see in Islamic countries of the middle-east.
Sharia law was fully agitated for and included in the constitution by these peoples and is still widely practiced among them.
Other Nigerians, including muslims and christians tend to see the people of this socio-culture as a people of religious extremism but they rather see themselves as a people of religious piety.

As a socio-culture, they are the strongest and most United political force and people in Nigeria and have dominated the Nigerian political sphere for a longerperiod.
They have managed to bring other smaller northern socio-cultural regions under their political and cultural clout.

The people of this socio-culture are very good in business hence the richest man in Nigeria and Africa as a whole is from this socio-culture. They are only surpassed in capitalism by the people of the South-eastern Igbo socio-culture in Nigeria.

The people of this socio-culture dominate animal farming in Nigeria as it is an inherent part of the culture of some of it's peoples.

The setbacks and stereotypes among this socio-culture is the very high illiteracy and poverty rates among it's people and also religious extremism and high conservatism which has created various terrorist groups.
This is the part of Nigeria with the highest poverty and illiteracy rates.
Majority of Nigeria's poor and illiterate are from this socio-culture.

Serious drug abuse through various forms like abuse of Codeine, Tramadol e.t.c appear to have become very rampant within this socio-culture.

Child marriage & Sodomy of children appear common too.

Upward social mobility appears the most difficult in this socio-culture due to the low literacy rates and also arranged marriages. Most marriages within this socio-culture are arranged marriages between families and friends and not love marriages, causing only people of the same socio-economic class to get married to each other.
This is almost like a caste system.



2) THE YORUBA SOCIO-CULTURE
(around 40 million people).

This is the 2nd largest socio-cultural space in Nigeria, primarily located in the South-west and parts of the North-central geopolitical zones.
This socio-culture encapsulates the states of Lagos, Oyo, Osun, Ondo, Ekiti, Ogun and the majority of Kwara and Kogi West.

Lagos, the largest city in Nigeria being dominated by this socio-culture has seen to the cultural absorption of other peoples who are non-native to this region.
The people of this socio-culture are almost evenly divided religiously between muslims and christians, yet it is very peaceful and religion has not been able to divide this socio-culture unlike is seen in the North where religion is the major determinant of socio-cultural space.

The people of this socio-culture are the pioneers of western education and Pentecostal Christianity in Nigeria and this can readily be seen by the greatest concentration of not just universities but the best universities in Nigeria and the headquarters of most Pentecostal churches in Nigeria, thereby making it the center of religious tourism.

The people of this socio-culture are very very social, down to earth and very lively, little wonder they throw the best, most colorful and biggest parties in Nigeria and produce the best and most numerous music entertainers.

This socio-culture emphasizes the most on respect for elders and traditional authorities in Nigeria and the people of this socio-culture hold on to tradition the most among all others. This can be seen by the fact that native and tribal names are most held unto by these people unlike other parts of Nigeria where religious names and ridiculous western names have taken over.
You almost can never find anybody in this socio-culture answering a full official name like IBRAHIM MUSTAPHA AHMED or CHRISTIANA JOHN CHRISTOPHER as is sadly very rampant among all the other socio-cultures of Nigeria that one begins to wonder if the other peoples of Nigeria are an African people or they are probably an Arabic people or descendants of the Holy Roman empire.

The setbacks and negative stereotypes of this socio-culture by other Nigerians are strong fetish practices and beliefs which have seen to an upsurge of ritual killings.

Strong tribalism and tribal ignorance, for example, people of this socio-culture appear to be the only ones who do not acknowledge the existence of minority groups in Nigeria, hence it appears to them that every Southern minority from after Ore down to Calabar is seen as an Omo-Igbo while every Northern minority from after Lokoja/Ilorin is seen as a Hausa, which is very wrong and myopic.

Cowardice, treachery/backstabbing & extravagancy (in lavish partying) are also included.

Thuggery culture which manifests in various forms like Agbero (motor park touts), Owomida, Omo-onile are also included.



3) THE SOUTHEAST IGBO SOCIO-CULTURE
(around 35 million people).
This socio-cultural zone should not be mistaken to be synonymous with the entire Igbo or Igbo speaking population since there is a fairly unique 'South-South Igbo socio-culture' which will be treated separately.
This zone occupies the entirety of the Southeast geo-political zone which comprises of Enugu, Anambra, Imo, Abia & Ebonyi states and some few parts of Benue.
The people of this socio-culture have evolved to be the strongest capitalists not just in Nigeria but in Africa as a whole.
They are very very industrious and enterprising, hence are the most widely travelled people, always ready to seek and take advantage of opportunities not just everywhere in Nigeria, but everywhere in the world.
They dominate the medium scale enterprise of Nigeria, importation and a huge percentage of large scale enterprise and Industries.
The people of this socio-culture were the pioneers of the Nigerian movie industry which is the largest in Africa and third largest in the world also known as Nollywood.
This socio-culture is the largest christian stronghold of Nigeria as almost everyone is a christian and muslim adherents are extremely few to non-existent.
Politically, they have been the most disadvantaged majority group in Nigeria, largely owing to the loss of the Nigerian civil war.

The setbacks and negative stereotypes of this socio-culture by other Nigerians are extreme greed characterized by a high tendency for crime and criminal activities of which fake productions/imitations, international drug smugling, baby factories e.t.c are the most widely known.

Arrogance, rudeness, hostility, pride and disrespect to others which is interpreted as 'bravery, outspokenness and competitiveness' by them are also included and this is readily seen by the hatred and disdain for the people of this socio-culture by all other Nigerians of different socio-cultures.

onadana:
He was screaming instead of punching and headbutting her.Just imagine.One powerful punch would have saved his life.

Pray u are never faced with such a situation cos you cannot even think of what to do at the moment, your thinking facculty ceases from functioning especially if the pressure was much.

murphyibiam15:
Looks like domestic violence is mostly common in the south west , north and south south

Igbos are somehow not part of it

That of Igbos to me is more or less of the reverse. The men do more of the killing.

Tajbol4splend:
Hausa Fulani woman killed her husband? They are too meek to do that, I don't believe the story

Ehn, don't even repeat this again. Hausa fulani women kill their husbands more than any other tribe if care is not taken. Many of them tell their husbands face to face that they will kill him if he marries another wife.

Forced underage marriage and Polygamy are 2 serious reasons why Hausa fulani women either kill their husbands or manipulate him with charms.
Any Hausa man u see with multiple wives, fear that man cos he must be a very spiritually strong person, if not, the wives go just use different kind of charms scatter im brain.

Bagehot:
Do you really think Nigeria has enough resources to cater to its population?

Quick comparison: Saudi Arabia did about $160 billion in oil revenue in 2018, which divided by 26.9 million people comes to about $5,900 per head; conversely, Nigeria earned $26.1billion in the same year, which divided by 180m people comes to a miserly $140 - if you factor in that the production cost for Saudi Arabia is around $3 per barrel, and $30 per barrel for Nigeria, you see how limited the so-called wealth of Nigeria really is (before even getting into the grubby hands of our politicians and grubby civil servants).

Nigeria is already a poor country, with an incompetent thieving elite, a population already bursting at the seams, and next to no thriving industries to occupy the youth bulge.

Natural resources are not the only things that sustains a country. How many natural resources does Japan or EU have?
Human resources are far far more valuable.
The problem with Nigeria is the core-northern muslims who are overwhelmingly illiterate and very unproductive. They are also the ones holding Nigeria backwards with their strong culture of tribalism and religious extremism which is also preventing this country from restructuring.

This is why I said, dividing Nigeria or restructuring of this country should be the paramount topic on the lips and hearts of every youth in this nation, cos that is the solution to our problems as a people. With this, every other thing will naturally fall in line.

Obi1kenobi:
Africa is already the most populated continent after Asia. We're more populated than Europe (1.2 billion to 714 million). I'd say considering all our problems on the continent, we don't need any more people. People are a resource, but only if they're developed human capital and Africa's human capital is the most underdeveloped on the planet by far, so we're more a continent of consumption than production. The world's problems over the next century (tech evolution and medical developments and scientific discoveries and space exploration and climate change action and environmental conservation etc) would basically be solved by the productive people while all we'll keep doing here in Africa is breeding. We shouldn't be proud of the fact we're a liability to the world rather than assets to the world. The pressures we're already facing in Africa (urban population explosions, climate change and desertification, famine, drought and disease, political and sectarian strife etc) is why hundreds of thousands of Africans are risking the perilous journey through Libya and the Mediterranean crossing to get to Europe. And it will only get worse.

Think of this: at Nigerian independence, the UK's population was 52 million while Nigeria's was 45 million. Today, the UK is 66 million while Nigeria is close to 200 million. Which is predicted to hit 450 million by 2050 (UK's population would be around 76 million at that time by projections) and 750 million by 2100. Biko, e don do for us. Let us stop. Lagos is barely a livable city nowadays because of the population and lack of infrastructure to support that population. I can't imagine what it would be like for the population of Lagos to keep expanding. China's one child policy was one of the greatest economic policies of the last century. It eliminated about 400 million people who would have been born in that time and allow China to deliver focused policies that dragged several hundred million Chinese citizens out of poverty in the space of a few decades. If African states had any ambition, that is the kind of thing we should be conceptualizing right now.

You are looking at Europeans through the eyes of Europe only, but that's not correct. Who is dominating the Americas & Australia today? Isn't it the same European descendants?

Europeans and their descendants are around 1.5 billion people today, spread almost all over the world, While Black Africans and their descendants all over the world are just only more than 1 billion if you include Mixed race Brazilians together with us.

South Asians and East/South-East Asians are now spreading their tentacles all over the world too. Go and see the way Chinese and Indians have almost successfully taken over Canada and to an extent UK. They dominate the professional jobs there and you a black person and an Indian person looking for job with equal qualifications, be rest assured the Indian person will get it before you do. Even when you are more qualified in some cases.
It will be difficult for Chinese and Indians to dominate America cos of the power of the American entertainment and sports industry which Asians are not naturally good at, however ICT which is the pillar of American economy is already dominated by Indians.
My friend who schooled in Germany some few years ago said as at the time he was in his early years of university, Indians had already started to come into the school in large numbers and few years after he finished, they had already overtaken the school and are very influencial in deciding who gets admitted or not.
I have currently secured a professional job in Canada and will be emigrating in some weeks time and guess which people made all these possible? INDIANS!

It is so sad that our people are drowned and enslaved on their routes to Europe. My heart bleeds and I wish it wouldn't be so.
However, many more of our middle-class citizens are emigrating to advanced nations through better means and are becoming very productive citizens of those countries, leaving behind their middle-class positions in Nigeria for poorer people to fill them up.

China is an unbeatable emerging world super power today and this to a large extent owes to it's population. Imagine if they had enforced this one child policy centuries ago when they had not exploded like this in terms of population, will they command the kind of influence they did today?

Making a country progress is not a difficult thing. Quality education is the key. Core-northern muslims are the ones dragging Nigeria backwards today. Tribalism is also another major problem, but you can see that most Southern & Middlebelt Nigerians are now calling for restructuring and this will help curtail tribalism to a great extent, but core-northern muslims will never be interested or accept this without force.

Dividing or Restructuring Nigeria should be Paramount in all our discussions and agitations, cos with this, things will naturally fall into a progressive line.

Obi1kenobi:
I don't doubt or argue against the emboldened. The social dysfunction among Northern Muslims that prevents their upward mobility is undeniable. But that is a different issue. In this thread, we're talking solely about the common propensity all Nigerians have to breed like rabbits, and I'm just saying even Southerners are caught in the vicious cycle. I've lived down South here all my life and everyday, I see people with many children who have no business having many children. But yes, I'll concede from the data I've seen, Northerners are breeding more. This current generation of 18 to 40-year-olds seem to be turning things around. Most of my family and friends who are at breeding age right now aren't having any more than 3 kids. I hope this will define our future. Cos we're not yet an overpopulated country, but we're almost there.

Thank you! The mentality is changing on it's own among the younger educated urban middle-class and even lowclass Christians of Nigeria.... That's why I find this thread unnecessary. It's a trend that is going away on it's own gradually.
This tells us that it is better we intensify efforts on quality education, cos with this, things like this naturally fade away on their own.

It's also fairly the same among the muslims. Educated urban northern muslims also have fewer children. I have many educated middle-class Hausa fulani Muslim family friends and all of them have 3-4 children only and are mostly monogamous.
The problem is the illiterate northern muslims who sadly are in the overwhelming majority.

Obi1kenobi:
During which period did China grow from 1.3 billion to 1.4 billion? And when did I say it is not growing. I said it is "barely growing"....abi, you don't know what "barely growing" means? China's population growth rate in 0.6% per annum. Nigeria's is 2.6% per annum (over 4 times more than China). This means over the next decades, China's population will barely grow while Nigeria's population will almost double every 25-year cycle.



Of course, it is because of our culture. Go and look at a UN or Word Bank table of global population growth rates. Apart from a country like Afghanistan which is a shiithole, almost all the countries with high population growth rates (2% and over - some almost as high as 4%) are subsaharan African nations. Why else do you think that is other than a regressive, uneducated, unproductive culture that turns women to breeding machines?

Brazil has a bigger population than Nigeria, but it's growth rate is less than 1/3rd of Nigeria's. This means it's keeping a moderate growth rate and maintaining what it has. And Brazil is far bigger in landmass with more resources than Nigeria and one of the fastest growing economies in the world that invests in human capital.

No homosexuality has little effect on the population. If you assert it, you have to prove it. This is not a beer parlour where you can claim anything you want.

Which ancient Nigeria. China is a very old, great civilization. Nigeria as an entity was basically invented by the British. If not for the British, we could easily be 10 different countries. But this has nothing to do with the crux of my argument.

Another thing about Nigerian Christians is that we are rapidly immigrating! Many of us are leaving to Western countries.
As it stands, there are over 5 million Nigerians and their descendants in developed Western nations.
Cc uninspired07


@Obi1kenobi ... I may sound silly, but personally I would like the population of Subsaharan or Black Africans to double ASAP. Europeans had a population explosion for the last millennium. It was this pressure of the population explosion that pushed them into being more creative, building bigger ships and exploration, looking for more lands and continents to conquer and plunder.
I am not saying that this will exactly be our direction.
The European, East Asian & South- Asian races each have over 1 billion to 2 billion people and now they are talking about prosperity for their people and birthcontrol.....

However, I feel we Black Africans put in birthcontrol ahead of us, yes we could progress, but we will never be able to catch up the demographic advantage these other civilizations had during their own periods of population explosion.

Obi1kenobi:
No, the emboldened is false. It is not "very common" at all. My very large extended family (both on my mum and dad's side), I have only one aunt who never married or had children. All my female cousins in their 30's are married too except one I can think off. And I come from a relatively educated family in a relatively enlightened area in Anambra. But I'll grant you that the North has a higher fertility/birth rate:
https://nigerianstat.gov.ng/download/775
My point is that people underrate how prolific Southerners are in breeding.



Because Nigeria literates act like educated illiterates basically in everything they do: whether their religious fanatism, or lifestyle (I was in traffic a few days ago and just watching some guy in a suit casually throwing all his banana peels on the road from his bus) or the way they breed. One theory I have why educated, working class Southern women have so many children is because many of them hire housemaids and houseboys to take care of their children, so it doesn't affect their careers much. I come from a large family myself, and one reason my educated mum who was an FIRS Deputy Director could afford to have so many kids was because we had househelps (at a stage, when I was in nursery school, we had 3). If these women were in Europe where housegirls/houseboys are illegal and seen as human trafficking and hiring adult maids is very expensive, they wouldn't be popping out kids anyhow cos it would affect their careers having to take care of all the kids they're having. I have a sister in the UK for example with just 1 child and juggling that singular child and her career is difficult and expensive. It's far easier for working women in Nigeria than it is abroad.

Yes you are very very correct about the maid factor. It's very true.

Nobody is saying Southern Nigerians don't have a high birthrate. What we are saying is that it is nowhere compared to the north. Another thing is that most Southerners and Christians thrive to go to school and make their lives better unlike our northern counterparts who do not care about a better life in their majority. Rather they take pride in calling themselves TALAKAWA (poor masses), believing that they were created by God to be poor as their fate and destiny.


Take for example, my mother was from an extremely poor interior rural area in Plateau state where it takes almost an hour drive on untarred road to get there (Till now no light there). They had to trekk for hours everyday to get to school in the next community cos their own group of villages had no primary school.
Southerners cannot comprehend this kind of poverty.
She was the first child among 11 children and had to dropout of secondary school. Luckily for her she married an educated person and she was able to train almost all her younger ones to school and today some of them are millionaires and most of them are graduates.

This kind of phenomenon can hardly ever be seen among Northern Muslims. Christians generally are encouraged towards education and love it. We admire a better life and strive towards it. If it were muslims in my mother's family's shoes, everyone would have still remained in poverty by now having so many children.

My mother's immediate younger sister who went to live amongst muslim relatives and fulanis and became a Muslim till date has her and her 8 children stuck in a vicious cycle of poverty. Infact she would have had more children if not that her husband died.
She calls my mother to beg my mother money not to pay school fees for her children, rather for her teenage children's wedding! Imagine the fuckéry! My mother has no grandchild yet, but this her younger muslim sister has around 5 grandchildren and expecting more!

A typical Southerner like u will never understand the difference between muslim and christian birthrate differences. My society is a reflection of this and I am giving you first hand information.

Bagehot:
In terms of average density per landmass, Nigeria is pretty overpopulated. For comparison, Nigeria's landmass is 923,763 km², whilst Texas (just one state in America) is 695,662 km² - roughly two-thirds of Nigeria's landmass. Yet the population of Texas is 28.7 million compared to Nigeria's 180 million. That's a ridiculous density per square km.

Overpopulation is not necessarily based on landmass, rather availability of resources & urban planning.
Tokyo metro is just about 13,000km² yet there are 40 million people living there and overpopulation is not felt cos the city was well planned.
If you consider Nigeria overpopulated, then Germany is overpopulated too.

Besides, the spread of population in Nigeria is uneven. Southern Nigeria has only 22% of Nigeria's landmass, yet 50% of the population.

Some LGAs in Northern Nigeria are bigger than states in Southern Nigeria.

Dicktionary:


Hello Bro. Uninspired07.
I like your post because you are single and inquisitive to know more, but I want to tell you, that the secret of any marriage is known only when you get married yourself.
Some average family have 10 children and they are doing fine, and I know a friend who have only one child, and they are finding it difficult to eat etc.

Not all northern have up to 4 wife's and many children, because in the Holy Quaran you are suppose to treat all of them equally, so many of them no longer marry much and bear much children.

My former neighbor an Igbo woman have 13 children from her late husband, and another I know well in Kwale have 17 Children. It doesn't matter where you are from, plenty children is a World wide thing.


NIGERIA IS NOT GOING TO ANY CIVIL WAR SOONER OR LATER......I have been so blessed to travel to more than eight Wartorn countries around the world.
THEY IS NO PEACE ANYWHERE ON EARTH, EVEN PEACEFUL COUNTRIES ARE ALWAYS HAVING THE FEAR OF TERRORIST ATTACK.

I CAN MENTION 7 EUROPEAN AND 9 ASIA BIG NATIONS THAT I HAVE TRAVELED TO THAT NIGERIAN ECONOMY IS FAR BETTER THAN THEM.

Calm down Bros. Nigeria is blessed, but Nigerian Citizen are the Most Stupid and Idiot set Vagabond's of a Homosapien walking on this planet!!!!


Smh
godfearingD!ck

Nigeria could go to a civil war very soon. Very soon, other tribes will unite together and rise up against Fulani herdsmen and their advancement in the middlebelt and the south. It is going to be very bloody. People are already tired and fed up.

KevinDein:
This.

Nigerian christians are breeding just as much as their Muslim counterparts. I work with learneth Christian folks, well read guys, and they have 5-7 children.

The thread became less interesting when some on here decided to regionalized the problem.

This can never be true. Especially to someone like me who is from a northern ethnic group equally divided between Christians & Muslims.

In my small maternal farming village for example, my polygamous maternal grandfather was among the most prolific men and yet he had only 11 children, meanwhile the only muslim family in that community had over 30 children.

I have another muslim cousin whose father had 32 children. Meanwhile, I have never seen or heard of any Christian family in my entire ethnic group whose family had up to 20 children. Polygamous or not.

What you people are saying is impossible!
My Muslim cousins who are my age already have children meanwhile I am not even thinking of marriage now.

Obi1kenobi:
I've argued this a number of times on this forum, but the emboldened is a myth. Nigerian Christians are no less prolific in their breeding than Northern Muslims. You're every bit as likely to see an Igbo woman with 6 children as you are to see a Fulani woman with 6 children. All of us need serious reorientation in this country: North or South, East or West. Incidentally, every population census conducted in Nigeria since iindependence has the same ratio of Northerners to Southerners: about 55% to 45%.

This is completely and highly false. It is very very common to see Christian Nigerian women who are in their 30s, 40s and even 50s who have never gotten married or had any children in their lifetime.... However, something like this is very very rare to non-existent among northern muslims. Hardly do u ever see a Northern muslim lady in her 30s who had never given birth, unless she has issues of infertility...

Not even disability is enough reason for a northern muslim woman not to have children. Lame, blind, dumb, deaf and even imbëcile northern muslim women have children in their 20s.

How can u ever compare the birthrates of a people who are predominantly literates to people who are predominantly illiterates? You are not being reasonable.

uninspired07:
Why should any sane person be angry at a thread geared toward saving them from poverty & increasing the likelihood of their families escaping one of the worst countries in the world?

I can’t fathom why anybody will be against this thread.

I am against this thread cos Southern and Christian youths of today are naturally having fewer children than their parents did. Nobody needs to tell them.

What people like you should rather channel your energy on is the unity of Christians in Nigeria to see to the immediate division of this country. Not telling people to have fewer children when that is already the trend for the majority of us.

uninspired07:
You shouldn’t be surprised. He’s a northerner & they have a mandate to overpopulate Nigeria. They can have Nigeria, a backwater, big for nothing shithole to themselves, we would gladly leave the expired contraption to them. It’s the southerners who want to bring plenty children to continually battle with Almajiris that I pity.

Are you okay? Are you saying we should all vacate our ancestral lands for the Hausa fulani muslims to occupy or what?
Which country do you think can accommodate all Nigerian Christians?
I am beginning to see that you are an agent of the caliphate sent to confuse Southerners and Christians.

See, Nigerian Christians if separated out as a people from the muslims are not as poor and wretched as western statistics project us nationally to be.

Nigerian Christians are at least 80% literate and the extreme poverty among us is like 25%.

80% of extremely poor and illiterate people in Nigeria are the muslims.... Take them away and Nigeria will be on par with countries like South Africa, Turkey and Latin American countries in terms of Human development index!

kevoh:
It is only a handful of Northern political leaders that will still remain rich even if the Northern population have the numbers to win every election in Nigeria till eternity. The rest of them with their 4 wives and 25 almajiri children will continue to remain in poverty. They should keep popping out those kids. Hunger does not respect anyone.

Yes but these high numbers of almajiris eventually determine your political leaders and the political future of your children. These same almajiris end up dominating your future and controlling the wealth of your nation which they channel to develop their own region in return.
Indirectly, you are working for them.

Economic power without political power is quite useless.
Jews controlled the economy of Europe, but it took just one European political power to almost wipe them out entirely from the face of the Earth and they lost most of the wealth they have gathered for centuries within just a decade.

Common sense is not always common.

uninspired07:
Sooner or later, Nigeria will be liberated from their strangle hold & they will be worse than chad. Just watch out. Make God no kill us.

Thank you very much, this is what we should be talking about first before we talk about population control.

Many areas of Northern and Middlebelt Nigeria which were originally Christian majority are now being overrun by muslims and you people are here flexing muscles on the Christians online who are increasingly having fewer kids in our majority.

See, northern muslims if they are in a country of their own without oil money will be forced to enforce birth control in their own country or self destruct, but as long as they are in a one Nigeria where they must compete with Southerners and Christians for political domination, they even encourage their people to produce more children in order to dominate politically and win elections.

Use your tongue to count your teeth.
Southern Nigerians and Christians cannot be arguing with each other over birth control while our northern and muslim counterparts keep popping out kids with which they hope to overrun us.

Saltybear:
Exactly

I always say it, the poor are the problem of Nigeria

Can't you see one dolt there typing he wants four kids?

If you check he lives an absolutely gut wrenching mediocre life and is totally satisfied with it and has no qualms about bringing kids to suffer

Anyways my.joy is when war starts these children of the poor will be drafted as child solders for revel groups

The sad part of this all is that the people who need this anger channeled to are not on nairaland and these are the northern Muslims.

So far so good, the majority of Christians in Nigeria, even northern Christians hardly have more than 4 children... Go to the north and see the real deal.

I am a northern christian, my mother has only 3 children, while her immediate junior sister who is a Muslim has 8 children and among these 8 children, the first daughter already has 3 children while the first son has 1 or 2 already and they are both younger than myself and my brother who are both in our mid 20s and have no children yet. So by the time I and my brothers are having our first children, our younger Muslim cousins should already be having more than 12 children combined.

I have another muslim cousin whose father had 32 children.

So you folks are misdirecting and mischanelling your anger to the wrong folks!

uninspired07:
The North can keep populating the earth with children, they will eventually inherit a Somali like nation filled with instability & war. Na dem sabo.

You are not being reasonable. The northern Muslims cannot be allowed to have so many children while Christians are having fewer children. It doesn't make any sense as long as we share the same country. ...... Cos we are still affected one way or the other by their stupidity and we can never limit it as long as we share the same country.

Bazamfare:
Lol.. just listen this fool!! And ur parents will think they have sent you to school!! I'm not surprised that since u were exposed as 5% in population, you have been desperately trying to attach urself by force with the SS to increase ur numbers, while bringing others down!!

There is nothing like kafanchan and southern Borno in the constitution, but Borno and Kaduna state.. all these places are governed by the overall laws and regulation governing the region, since its a majority hausa/fulani/Muslim states, we have the right to have an emir in every nook and cranny we feel like and there us nothing anybody can do about it!!

You can claim Muslims are merely 20% in the northfor all we care, but that won't change reality on ground!!! For those that get their information from RadioBiafra, I don't expect much

So are you saying that the past & present governors of Plateau, Nasarawa & Taraba had the right the abolish the Muri, Wase, Lafia and other Emirates in the region?
Or Yakowa & Boni Haruna had the rights to abolish Zaria & Yola Emirates when they were the governors and enforce traditional chiefdoms in those areas? Is that what you are saying?

Why don't you also say Nigeria is Nigeria and there is nothing like Southern Nigeria and that Buhari has the right to abolish all the traditional institutions of Southern Nigeria and establish Emirates there?

Can you listen to yourself and see the level of your stupidity?

Thank u @XcelMan, please correct your previous comment on this thread....

You were supposed to say THE FORMER when describing vanghnsangrey not the latter.

LegendHer0:
I doubt your paternity as a Yoruba. Even if you are one, you really need to be kept in a camp like the Uyghurs muslims of China to undergo re-orientation.

Firstly, you are a liar. In 2015, the religious block that supported Buhari most are the redeem church and they are majorly Christians.

That you even opined that the Christian yorubas should move to the south east give credence to the fact that you are either an alien to Yoruba culture or you just finished smoking weed.

I’ve gone through your post and I can see you are a religious fanatics, where do you learn this from? Nibo ni agbo Ile yin ati wipe kini oriki re?

A sane omoluabi shouldn’t succumb to the practice of the religious bigotry that is constantly being played by the Igbos and the Hausa/Fulanis.

When has a Muslim Yoruba ever killed for religion? Which state in Yoruba land has the shariah law you’re taking about? What terror has the Muslim yorubas ever done to the Christians?

As a Muslim, I even bought several chickens for my Christian family this Christmas, the same case can be seen in virtually all families in the Southwest that features both Muslim and Christian alike in an extended family.

We are still trying to curb the insanity of MURIC as a body and yet you are here trying to be the weak link of religious divide among the Yorubas. God will judge everyone of you that have made it a duty to tarnish the culture of religious tolerance that our great ancestors sacrificed so much for.

If I may ask you, why are you Yoruba youths and your traditional leaders not speaking against MURIC?

Yoruba land will not easily survive a religious crisis or a religious partition. ...If you people don't put an end to this MURIC or silence them on affairs concerning your people, they will breed very serious troubles for you in the future.

Chibuzoc:
The same Hausa Christians that joined forces with Islamic jihadist to kill there fellow Christians from the East
I laugh in karma

With all that was written to explain the difference between Hausa Christians and Northern/Middlebelt Christians, u still don't get it? People like u are the reasons why Black people may never make it to the top of human races.

It was Northern/Middlebelt christians that had a hand in the Biafran war and not Hausa Christians who were very few in the rural areas of the Core-north.

jumper524:
I wasn't debunking the fact that there are several other tribes in the north or if there are hausa christians. Also there are many hausa christians in dutsu ma who are lecturers and christains.
They don't dominate cos they are minorities not because they are marginalized.
I also await the time when Igbo muslims from south east would be appointed into key govt positions or are the igbos not united?
Pls the north might have its problem but its gradually becoming a case of the past as we keep fighting against such negative actions.
What we need now is cooperation not misinterpreted and misinformed lies or rumors.

Blind stupidity.. Can you tell me how many times the Sultan and Emirs of the core north have summoned peace reconciliatory meetings and summits between Middlebelt tribes and Hausa fulanis in order to discuss the way forward?

Rather last year when Fulanis were on the receiving end and being severely dealt with by the Mambilla people in Taraba state, the Sultan came out to spit fire and brimstone threatening the entire nation against hurting the fulanis. And the funny thing was that most Mambilla people who were killing Fulanis were even muslims! ..... This clearly tells us that Fulani people and leaders put Fulani first before Islam or Arewa. .... In such a case, tell me how you expect your Imaginary United Arewa' to work?

Well, continue deceiving yourself, but like I told you the handwriting is on the wall. Most of us from Plateau, Southern Kaduna, Nasarawa, Taraba, Adamawa e.t.c are tired and no longer interested in Arewa. If you doubt me, go round the region and take a consensus.

Within your lifetime I promise you that you will see a partition of your Imaginary Arewa like what was obtained in India and so sadly, religion will be the main factor of division. Christians will go on one side and Muslims on the other side cos it is apparent that this marriage cannot work. This division has already started in many places, all that is remaining is for it to be official.
Just pray that you are not the minority where you are cos you will have to relocate to go join Hausa fulanis in Kano or Katsina.


Just for the records, Igbo muslims cannot be compared to Hausa Christians or Middlebelt Christians cos all Igbo muslims are converts from Christianity.
Islam never penetrated or gained ground in any part of Igbo land, so there are no numerous indigenous communities where Igbo muslims form a majority in Igboland.
Edo north is the only part of the SE & SS where islam penetrated and that is why despite the strong influence of christianity converting many muslims to Christians there, you still have many indigenous communities with Muslim majority there, especially the villages. So, Igbo muslims are not a reality in the real sense of it.

joyandfaith:
op is actually right. I served in north precisely Katsina state. I was able to know indigenous hausa Christians. they are mostly members of ecwa church. they are minority in north west states. they disguise as muslims. some have to go to states like Kaduna or jos for university education or employment.
on northern Christians, there are millions of them who are not hausa or fulani by tribe. they speak hausas but they are not. they were fooled ahmadu bello with his one God and one north policy. that was reason they fought against biafra during civil war but now story has changed. during my NYSC, I met few guys from plateau state, they did not want to be identified as hausas.
Ahmadu Bello dream can only come true if Muslim north will vote for a northern Christian to be a president or v.p. I am also waiting for the time when hausa/ kanuri Christians from katsina ,kano or Borno etc will be elected or appointed into key positions in government.

@jumper524. Sebi you can see and read what someone else is saying to confirm all I have been saying? I guess he is a religious bigot too according to you right?

@joyandfaith, yes you are correct. These Hausa Christians only get opportunities and feel belonged and accepted in the society when they are in Jos or Kaduna among Plateau & Southern Kaduna people.... You won't even know that they are Hausa people unless they tell you themselves. It's such a pity how religion can divide people who are the same flesh and blood so much so that Brothers become enemies and strangers become friends.

Biafrarep:
Honestly, I really pity northern Christians. They are indeed the most threatened indigenous people in the whole world today. However, they must stand courageously and speak with one voice so that the world can understand their plight and come to their rescue.

Exactly. These Hausa christians are the most timid group of people. They have refused to stand up for once for their rights and damn the consequences. Maybe they are afraid of expulsion from their ancestral Homeland, cos this could be very possible.

Kennitrust:
I keep thinking everyday the beauty this world is missing because of Muslim.

The needless war we fought in the middle of peace...

The banning of man and woman to sit together in public when behind the public, they destroyed the destiny of a nine years old girl

Muslim has caused the world more harms than any other religions in the world.


Muslims are very peaceful when they 10% in your community. If you allow them to grow up to 80% in your community, you will either joint them or they kill you for not submitting to their religion.

Muslims are the worst hypocrite friends you will have in your community with the pretend of living peacefully together.


I hate these terrorists from my blood stream

Are u serious? Which 80%?, Once they are up to 30%, they become a serious problem and a headache, disobeying laws and constituting a nuisance.
At 50%, they fully launch terrorism and jihad.

They should continue, the whole world is getting really tired and pissed off by them and a time will come when they will be heavily and badly treated like cockroaches. Very unproductive group of human beings.

TooMuchStuff:
OP you are very correct. Just the figures.
Core Hausa Christians are over 5Million in population. They are extremely discriminated against in all socioeconomic opportunities like Job, politics, religion blockade etc by the Sons of Danfodio.
We also have core Fulani Christians in Katsina, jigawa, Sokoto and Adamawa

Thank you very much.
When I meet with indigenous Hausa Christians and they break down the estimates of their population to me, I am shocked, cos the estimates they give me if added up should be around or over 4 million.

I just find this hard to believe and see it as an exaggeration on their parts. Well, maybe they are correct, only time will tell.

If you don't mind please where are you from?

darfay:
Quite diverse I must say. But since most tribes have been there for a long time, population is supposed to be on the high, I read somewhere that every village in gwoza borno state speaks a different language .How did the plateau tribes survive the jihad

The tribes raided and enslaved each other heavily in the past. I think this was the major cause of low population.
Also, there is a very very strong culture of the kind of witchcraft I call 'destructive family witchcraft' in these areas and the early adoption of orthodox Christianity did not help matters.

Yes what you heard about Gwoza is very true. Gwoza is also a mountain too.

Plateau and northern Nasarawa tribes used the mountains to their advantage just like the highland Christians of Ethiopia & Eriterea who are surrounded by lowland muslims on every front but were never Islamized for a thousand years since all their neighbors became Islamized.
Danfodio's and Fulanis horses could not easily climb the Plateau while the natives who had the advantage from the top were heavily armed and skilled in bow & arrows.

MoIbrahim:
When I wrote I didn't say northern or southern.
By the way, Kaduna is divided into Southern, Central and Northen districts and there are christians in all the three districts. And beyond the media rhetorics to score political points, there lots of muslims in the southern district too.

Kaduna is culturally divided into a Northern half and a Southern half.
The tribes on the South, the Hausa-fulanis on the north. You cannot use the senatorial districts to divide the state culturally because it is flawed.

Yes there are lots of Muslims in Southern Kaduna just as there are lots of Christians in Northern Kaduna too.

There are Hausa Muslim settlers and immigrants in Southern Kaduna and there are indigenous muslims from indigenous tribes in Southern Kaduna.

Likewise there are indigenous Hausa christians of Northern Kaduna as well as there are Igbo and other northern tribes christians who are immigrants in Northern Kaduna.

People tend not to understand these simple differences.

darfay:
That means there is a possibility of having a unified/central standard dialect created for the plateau tribes...
BTW I think the isoko and urhobo constitute a dialect continuum, but asides language every other thing is 100% same

Not really, cos those tribes I listed are like 35% of the state. They are the Chadic speakers who from my calculations immigrated to the Plateau about 1000 years ago during the Kanuri expansion into present day Northeast Nigeria.

My ethnic group, and other ethnic groups like the Rons & Beroms who speak Platoid languages are of a much older origin on the Plateau and are very different even from each other but with little similarities. The Taroks are like a hybrid between the Aboriginal Platoid speakers and Chadic speakers. People in Bassa area are of same stock with their neighbors in Lere part of Southern Kaduna. In summary it is a big Mish mash up .

In southern Kaduna, the Platoid speakers are the majority, that is the Katafs, Bajjus, Gong, Fanstuam, Kaninkon, Aticherak e.t.c and they understand themselves to an extent.

In the future, I will study more about these things. We can recreate a single central language for Plateau & Southern Kaduna, but it will have to be a merger of at least 4 language groups and will be very confusing.



Between Isoko & Urhobo, the difference between various Urhobo dialects is the same difference between any Urhobo dialect and Isoko.
Okpe is as different from Ughelli dialect as Isoko is different from Uvwie dialect. ... These things are very very fluid.