Plan for census 2023: Let the sleeping dog lie

On August 11 the outgoing Buhari administration made known its intention to conduct a national census next year costing around N190 billion. Their justification for this colossal expenditure is that data from the 2006 census is out of date and new demographic and socio-economic data is required for planning and development.

While this may be true, there is no justification for an administration due to quit office shortly spending borrowed money counting people when the nation has far more urgent problems to deal with. Does it make sense to commission a census at the end of tenure not at the beginning? What good plans could they possibly have after eight years in power that they now need to know the population? Is it not a tacit admission that their tenure has been characterised by baseless planning? It’s also pertinent to answer questions such as; is a census required to know that the nation needs at least one standard world class hospital in every state capital? Will census improve the abysmal security situation and resolve the problems of Internally Displaced Persons (IDP’s)? Will it solve the erratic electricity supply, or repair the failed portions of federal highways? Will it improve dilapidated infrastructure? Will the cost reduce poverty and improve the economy or make it worse?  

There is no disputing that an updated, correct census is necessary at some point in time, however this administration’s failure to ensure financial probity and weave the nation together has turned Nigeria into a poverty-ridden killing field in which there are far more pressing problems of life, death, medical services, and human welfare to spend scarce resources solving at the present time.

As far as the actual conducting of census goes, the truth is that the outgoing administration has lamentably displayed ineptitude for counting anything correctly! Everything from election results to financial accounts, and quite ludicrously even the number of dead bodies at the scene of a massacre are routinely incorrectly reported! There is little reason to believe that any census they conduct will be correct and free from manipulations motivated by political considerations. Even if they could be trusted to give a correct count the fact is at present the nation cannot afford the exercise.

The outgoing administration has brought Nigeria to its lowest financial ebb. Their superficial understanding of the economic and social issues causing the nation’s retrogression have made all economic indices as such inflation rate, exchange rate, unemployment level, fuel and diesel cost, power supply and the level of debt under their watch disgraceful and indefensible. Their deficiency of intellect, lack of vision, refusal to live within the nation’s means, insatiable appetite for luxury lifestyles and failure to implement modern ideas of governance have left the nation much worse off than they met it. The consequence of their borrowing more than the combined total of all previous governments since 1999, is that the incoming president will be required to repay over N24.5 trillion in the first three years of his tenure! After Buhari has left, successive administrations will be forced to borrow simply to repay debts! Within the next 10 years, Nigeria will require $10.19 billion to service external loans and World Bank officials predict that fiscal irresponsibility since 2015 means that default in repayment is practically inevitable! Although unpalatable, the debts could have been appreciated if there was evidence that loans were spent wisely. Condemnably, the money was used to fund pathetic, ill-conceived, poorly executed so-called “empowerment programmes” where unverifiable amounts of cash were supposedly handed out in public, as well as finance the extravagant lifestyles of political office holders and corruption of public officials. In addition to corruption and waste, stupendous amounts are being brazenly stolen or squandered.

Despite President Buhari appointing himself as Minister of Petroleum since 2015, over 500,000 barrels of crude oil are reportedly stolen every day. In terms of squandermania the Ministry of Agriculture scandalously awarded contracts worth over N18 billion to cut grass and clear bush! The Presidency claims to have purchased 10 luxury vehicles worth over N1 billion for the Niger Republic government, a claim which the Niger Republic’s Minister for Defense, Alkassoum Indatou, denied! The accountant-general and many other appointed officials are accused of embezzling billions. Most ludicrously, Ministries Departments and Agencies (MDAs) routinely refuse to present timely audited accounts and some even claim that snakes, rats or termites ate their accounting records!

There is no basis to have confidence in the competence of the outgoing administration to oversee hundreds of billions for census. The best advice that can be given to an outgoing administration that has shown little competence in governance and proved allergic to financial probity and accountability is to stop incurring debts. The little time they have remaining should be used to concentrate on conducting a free and fair election. They must dismiss the very idea of squandering more funds on conducting a contentious census which will most likely heighten tensions and increase calls for self-determination of indigenous peoples. The incoming administration may then carry out a census for their own planning whenever they feel it’s necessary. For now they should let sleeping dogs lie.