Nigeria’s census came up for knocks at the public presentation of a centenary book with the author urging Southerners, particularly the Igbo, to boycott the 2016 census if ethnicity and religion are not in the questionnaire.
Peter Anosike, author of 100 years of Amalgamation; Igbos What Hope in Nigeria? raised a question that always agitates the minds of scholars: Is the arid North actually more populous than the humid South as the results of successive head counts portray?
Anosike, Ohanaeze Ndigbo Publicity Secretary (South West), argued at the book launch in Lagos that the superior population claim by the North is fraudulent, and insisted it is one of the strategies the North has used to hold the South to ransom since the foundation of modern Nigeria.
According to him, there is no accurate demographic data to support the superior population assigned to the North, it was an invention of British colonial masters to compensate the North and to punish the South for asking for self rule.
Anosike, a journalist with Daily Sun, said there has never been any exhaustive census in Nigeria since 1931; what has been going on is awarding fresh figures to the old census template to maintain a predetermined balance in favour of the North, which it uses to hold the South to ransom politically.
He argued that 54 years of political independence is enough period to correct this anomaly and put the country on the path of progress.
According to him, the only way to do this is for ethnicity and religion to be tracked in the questionnaire for the 2016 census.
Anosike advocated that the members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC), who have demonstrated impartiality in national assignments like elections, should be used as enumerators.
He added that if these conditions are not met in the questionnaire, the Igbos in particular and the entire Southern Nigeria should boycott census.
His words: “I will personally mobilise all Nigerians to persuade the relevant authorities, including the National Population Commission (NPC), to ensure that ethnicity and religion are tracked in the 2016 census questionnaire and that members of the NYSC are used as enumerators.
“We cannot continue to live a lie after 54 years of our nationhood. Nigeria deserves accurate census. We want to know how many we truly are. We also want to know how many Tivs, Ibibios, Igbos, Yorubas, Hausas, and others there are in Nigeria.
“I am sure that the emir of Kano would be happy to know the number of his subjects living in Port Harcourt, Umuahia, Lagos, and so on.
“In the same vein, the ooni of Ife would be happy to know the number of his subjects living in Abuja, Kano, Jos, and so on. We need this data to develop this country.”
In Anosike’s view the current crisis in the National Assembly as well as the collation of signatures to impeach President Goodluck Jonathan by some legislators have their roots in the grand plot of the British colonial masters against the South, to compensate the North which never objected to British rule.
“However, the time has come to tell them that enough is enough. They cannot continue to ride us roughshod for ever.
“It is proclamation rather than exhaustive head count that gave Kano more population figure than Lagos because the Northern ruling class decreed it as part of perpetuating the fraud started by the British colonial masters that the most populous state in the South must not be more than the most populous state in the North.”