Again, Buhari passes the buck

Census, the six-letter word, is a troublesome word for Nigeria and its political leaders. Census is the simple act of counting and knowing the number of citizens in a given country for the primary but essential purposes of national planning. It is a demographic tradition observed by every country because it provides a road map to the human management and the developmental challenges that confront all nations, big and small, developed and developing. But in our country, the national population census the prisoner of high octane ethno-religious politics.

All our past leaders approached it with caution and some trepidation because we have elevated census to a sensitive matter in which stratified matters of ethnicity and religion matter. In the circumstances, we do not know how many we are in our country. We rely on the estimates by experts who put our population higher than that of any other country in Africa. And we relish their informed opinion that Nigeria is the most populous black nation in the world. We have so far failed to consistently prove it with an accurate and reliable headcount as and when due.

Our first national population census was conducted by the colonial authorities in 1911. Our first post-independence attempt at our national population was in 1961. We conducted the latest one in 2006. It is the tradition established by demographers that nations must conduct their national population census at the regular interval of ten years. We should have conducted our next census after 2006 in 2016. We did not.

We have breached that tradition with the 17-year gap, a period during which our national population has been turned into informed and uninformed guess work that yields unreliable estimated population figures that are a nightmare to national planners. Nations plan to succeed. There is no inherent magic in the social and economic development plan of a nation that wants to succeed in fact, not in wretched propaganda and cosmetics.

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The rainbow of hope streamed across the sky sometime in 2020 when President Buhari following tradition, issued a formal proclamation to kick-off the preparations for the next census by the National Population Commission. The commission immediately swung into action as soon as it received the necessary funding from the federal government. It had been rearing to go. It had no problems with taking the steps necessary to prepare for the admittedly huge task of counting this disputatious nation.

The commission completed the demarcation of the enumeration areas throughout the country last year. It was obliged to conduct two pre-tests – and it did. It also recruited and trained ad hoc enumeration workers. The commission, with the approval of the president, set the date of May 3-7 this year for the conduct of the national population and housing census. Now, all the preparations by the commission look as inviting as broken pieces of china in an Ajegunle gutter. Buhari is persuaded that the dates are no longer feasible. The census has now been cancelled and the responsibility for taking on it, has been transferred to the succeeding federal administration.

At least two developments flow from the decision, however cogent the reason or reasons might be, to postpone the census to an uncertain future date. One, we continue to treat our national population with levity with consequences for our national planning and development. It is most unlikely that the new federal administration will rate the conduct of the census as a priority in its policies and programmes with the obvious implication that our national planners will continue to be saddled with outdated and useless estimated population figures.

Two, by the time the new administration wakes up to this routine national duty to the country and its people, all the current preparations by the commission will be out of date. It is even likely that some of the commissioners and experts in the commission who drove the preparations this far, will be retired. They will take away with them their know-how acquired at public expense on the conduct of a national population and housing census.

I am a strong believer in the facts, not the fiction, of our national population. Are we as many as the experts estimate? I think what I called the BVAS revolution exposed some degree of an imbalance between the facts and the fiction of our national population. I believe we ought to do what other nations do and reap the benefits.

I made this argument in my column of May 16, 2019, bears repeating (see TheGuardian and Blueprint), to reinforce my point that an accurate and reliable national population census is critical to national planning and development and no president needs anyone to convince him of that elementary fact. I wrote:

“Between 1911 and 2006, we had had seven national headcounts. In the short period of 108 years, our population rose steadily from 16.05 million in 1911 to 140.3 million in 2006. We have left many nations behind at the starting point. But there is a downside to our ambition to fill the earth. We are imposing an infinite number on finite resources, human and natural. How to manage a growing population is a challenge of monumental proportions. We cannot be prepared for this challenge without knowing where we are and how many we are.

“We should know if our country is home to a larger ageing population or a larger youthful population. We should know where the population is concentrated – states, urban and rural areas. Only an accurate and reliable national headcount can give us these important facts. A large population or a larger youthful population presents us, each with its own challenges. A nation with a larger ageing population faces the serious problems of dependency.

“On the other hand, a larger youthful population means that our future as a nation is secure, all things being equal. But just as the nation must plan for its ageing population, so must it plan for its youthful population. The managers of our national economy whose job it is to plan for our national development, can do nothing without accurate and reliable national population census. Yes, number matters. Yes, its distribution matters. And yes, national planning stands on numbers.”

I need say no more.