The story of how Nigeria’s census figures ,became weaponized.



Saudi Arabia is the headquarters of the Islamic religion. They practise the religion to the core . In fact, the holiest Islamic site is there. They practise polygamy. Mortality rate there is low. Standard of living and health conditions there are very excellent and they are very wealthy. They have access to the sea on all sides. Have a landmass of 2,149,000 sqkm. Yet, the country’s population as of 2015 stood at 28 million of which, eight million were foreigners.

Nearer home in Africa, our next door neighbour up north is Chad. The landmass of Chad is 1,280,000 sqkm. It is almost 100% an Islamic state with the same culture, religion, agrarian and animal husbandry profession and even ethnicity as our brothers in the Northern part of Nigeria. They marry many wives too, but with a population of 13 million people. Ndjamena, its capital city nearer the Chadian basin and rivers, has a population of 700,000.

Our other neighbour, Niger Republic, with a landmass of 1,270,000 sqkm, that shares the same culture, language, ethnicity, agrarian and animal husbandry profession and a religious practice that allows polygamy like our brothers up north, has a population of 18 million people.

Now, move over to Northern Nigeria, with a landmass of 614,000 sqkm. Which is a quarter of that of Saudi Arabia, half of those of Chad and Niger and with very much higher mortality rate than Saudi Arabia but ravaged by poverty and disease with one of the worst health care systems in the world. No access to any river, sea or body of water like Saudi Arabia, yet someone wants me to believe that they have 90 million human beings living there.

Now, wait for the bigger contradiction: Benue and Plateau states, the richest and greenest belt within the North, do not have as great a population as their neighbours, who live in the arid desert. Haba! How? By what magic? If you query them, they will tell you that their religion allows them to marry many wives. So, how come your brothers in Chad who marry so many wives and who also live by the great Lake Chad are not as populated as you are?

Festus Odimegwu was on the verge of unravelling this mystery and exposing this grand fraud foisted on us by the British, as the Chairman of the Nigerian Population Commission, before President Goodluck Jonathan sacked him. That was one of the unforgettable and unforgiving sins of Jonathan against the Nigerian state.

Look around you, from Sudan to Mauritania to Somalia to Egypt to Morocco, practising Muslim countries in parts of Africa with the same polygamous religious culture, some even with access to the sea, far greater landmass and healthier and richer health conditions. Check out their populations.


We have registered GSM lines of over 143m with biometrics captured. Given that some people have more than one registered SIM cards. Please take out time to check the names and details of these SIM card owners and compare them with the fraudulent population demographics we have been fed with over the last 59 years.

Kindly also check the voting population, spread and numbers from city to city in the 1993 presidential election that was adjudged to be the freest and fairest election in Nigeria.

Please review the factors that influence the population of a given region or location at any time (it is an assignment) and tell me what you get.

I have a friend, who is pilot. He has flown the length and breadth of Nigeria. The guy is at a loss as to where the 90 million people are hiding in the Northern part of Nigeria. He cannot understand the mystery. Neither do I.
It is this kind of unresolved mystery and fraud that has continued to fuel the agitation of progressive folk for a total overhaul and restructuring of Nigeria. We cannot continue in these lies without resolving them. It is offensive and annoying for one to continue to throw a false and unfounded population figure at my face. A figure that does not show at all in the bottom line. A figure that adds no much value to the common wealth.

The day we start measuring population or the sharing formula for income into the federation accounts based on the number of documented /registered taxpayers and enrolment from each LGA and state in Nigeria, or other objective indices, that is the day we shall get the true and factual population and demographic of Nigeria. But for now, let’s all continue to fool around.

Enough is Enough. Let us restructure Nigeria now or burst this fraud!
In 2000, the Nigerian government began a new revenue sharing formula that returned 13% of all onshore oil revenues to the oil producing states. In practical terms, whatever link remained between population and revenue allocation was effectively broken by this new 13% derivation principle. In other words, there was no financial reason to manipulate the distribution of the census figures in 2006 in line with the 1991 numbers.

This is best illustrated with the monthly Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC) where the federal government and states gather to share oil revenues. The most recent report available on the statistics bureau website is for January 2018. According to the census figures, the most populous state in 2006 was Kano with 9.4 million people. In January it received a total of 6.6 billion naira ($18.4 million) after all deductions. Akwa Ibom state, a major oil producing state but with less than half the population of Kano at 3.9 million, received a total of 16.5 billion naira ($46 million). Of this amount, 12 billion naira was its share of the 13% derivation principle.
In 2013, the former chairman of the NPC, Festus Odimegwu, managed to talk himself out of a job with a series of controversial comments. 24 out of the NPC’s 35 commissioners asked the president to fire him from his job as they had lost all confidence in him. Before then he had been queried by the presidency for giving newspaper interviews where he said there had never been a credible census in Nigeria, including the one in 2006, and that the 2016 one which he had been charged with conducting was doomed to fail. All of this was intolerable candor and president Jonathan eventually tired of his antics and fired him in October 2013.

Nigeria does not seem like a country planning to hold a census this year. The country’s finances remain in poor shape and the leadership is currently consumed by politicking in advance of the 2019 general elections. But it will have to hold a census at some point and the question of whether people can lay down their weapons and allow a credible count to take place remains a pertinent one. There is no longer any financial reason for any state to lie about its numbers so the country has a unique opportunity to hold its first credible census in its history as an independent nation. The reasons for having credible population numbers are too obvious to restate: Nigeria has essentially been making policy blind since its independence.

The shenanigans around the census in Nigeria cuts through to the heart of much that continues to ail the country. What began in 1962 as jostling for advantage by politicians in a newly independent country became reinforced when resource rents upped the stakes. As with such things, even when it starts with falsifying census figures, it never ends there. Recently, the head of the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC) – the body tasked with deciding Nigeria’s revenue sharing formula—complained that states and local governments were concocting figures to boost their share of revenues. It is hard to tell what other data is being manipulated.

Nigerians do not trust official figures and neither do officials trust their own figures. The agriculture ministry recently put out a tweet where it quoted a data aggregation website, Index Mundi, as proof rice production had gone up in Nigeria. The irony of the country’s agriculture ministry being unable to produce its own data on a supposed achievement and having to rely on data from a foreign website was not lost on many people. Each time there is a terror attack or kidnapping in Nigeria, one guaranteed outcome is that the figures for the number of casualties or victims will vary from newspaper to newspaper and official government sources.

It helps to explain an ironic phenomenon—everyone in Nigeria—including the government, appeals to outside authority for authentic data about the country.

And that is the saddest part of it all.
State 1991 2006 1991 Share of Total 2006 Share of Total
Abia 2,338,487 2,845,380 3% 2%
Adamawa 2,102,053 3,178,950 2% 2%
Akwa Ibom 2,409,613 3,902,051 3% 3%
Anambra 2,796,475 4,177,828 3% 3%
Bauchi 4,351,007 7,018,106 5% 5%
Benue 2,753,077 4,253,641 3% 3%
Borno 2,536,003 4,171,104 3% 3%
Cross River 1,911,297 2,892,988 2% 2%
Delta 2,590,491 4,112,445 3% 3%
Edo 2,172,005 3,233,366 2% 2%
Enugu 3,154,380 5,444,784 4% 4%
FCT Abuja 371,674 1,406,239 0% 1%
Imo 2,485,635 3,927,563 3% 3%
Jigawa 2,875,525 4,361,002 3% 3%
Kaduna 3,935,618 6,113,503 4% 4%
Kano 5,810,470 9,401,288 7% 7%
Katsina 3,753,133 5,801,584 4% 4%
Kebbi 2,068,490 3,256,541 2% 2%
Kogi 2,147,756 3,314,043 2% 2%
Kwara 1,548,412 2,365,353 2% 2%
Lagos 5,725,116 9,113,605 6% 6%
Niger 2,421,581 3,954,772 3% 3%
Ogun 2,333,726 3,751,140 3% 3%
Ondo 3,785,338 5,859,834 4% 4%
Osun 2,158,143 3,416,959 2% 2%
Oyo 3,452,720 5,580,894 4% 4%
Plateau 3,312,412 5,075,908 4% 4%
Rivers 4,309,557 6,903,231 5% 5%
Sokoto 4,470,176 6,981,549 5% 5%
Taraba 1,512,163 2,294,800 2% 2%
Yobe 1,399,687 2,321,339 2%
Nigeria pop 88,994,211 140,433,796

Feyi Fawehinmi

Beautiful insight. I doubt this will make fp. Lalasticlala

This country is one big lie. Nigerians are looking st the SE as enemy yet the real enemy is lying in their bosom

Good luck Jonathan a southern leader,was aware of the fraud,but let it fly,the truth is that any one that supports evil will pay for it one way or the other.The south as been in bed with this evil,they Paying for it

I can't waste my time reading all your useless and fictitious population arithmetics, however,i disagree with you in the following areas:
1. That Saudi Arabia citizens practice polygamy is a fallacy that only you know where you got it. Interestingly, Saudis seems to dislike polygamy in their marital lives as only 1 in 10 of Saudis have more than one wife. In the recent statistics on age bracket under which Saudi women get married has skyrocketed to unprecedented levels as females now get married in their 40s. This is due to the amount charged for dowry which has become unaffordable to many willing prospective husbands; this has made government pegged a maximum amount payable for dowry;
2. Your Chad, Niger Republic's scenarios as your skewed and myopic juxtaposition to the northern Nigeria doesn't stand any where not even in logic but in commonsense .
You want to create a platform for anarchy in Nigeria by ignorantly or deliberately trying to puncture the existing facts and figures

I served in the North, this massive population North is alleged to have is fictitious. When we go to full biometrics, then this fraud would be uncovered!

Zandena:
I can't waste my time reading all your useless and fictitious population arithmetics, however,i disagree with you in the following areas:
1. That Saudi Arabia citizens practice polygamy is a fallacy that only you know where you got it. Interestingly, Saudis seems to dislike polygamy in their marital lives as only 1 in 10 of Saudis have more than one wife. In the recent statistics on age bracket under which Saudi women get married has skyrocketed to unprecedented levels as females now get married in their 40s. This is due to the amount charged for dowry which has become unaffordable to many willing prospective husbands; this has made government pegged a maximum amount payable for dowry;
2. Your Chad, Niger Republic's scenarios as your skewed and myopic juxtaposition to the northern Nigeria doesn't stand any where not even in logic but in commonsense .
You want to create a platform for anarchy in Nigeria by ignorantly or deliberately trying to puncture the existing facts and figures

Who believes the lie that there are more people in the North than in the South?

In 2011, more votes were cast in Zamfara than the total number of legitimately-registered voters, according to the revelation of INEC’s clean-up exercise.
Everything turns upside down in Nigeria. Logic becomes illogical. Wisdom becomes foolishness. Two plus two becomes seven. Hospitals become mortuaries. Stealing is not corruption. Education is a sin. In Nigeria, so many things fly in the face of simple commonsense.

One major example is the ridiculous idea that, by some inexplicable freak of nature, more people live in the arid less-developed Northern part of Nigeria than in the wet, coastal, more-developed South.

Insult to intelligence

The larger population of the North is an elephant in the Nigerian living-room. According to the last disputed census of 2006, there are 75 million Nigerians living in the North and 65 million in the South. This is balderdash! As long as we continue to accept such blatant lie, there can be no true democracy in Nigeria. Electoral results must continue to be falsified to conform to it. As long as we continue to entertain such outright falsehood, we shall continue to be subjected to a “born to rule” mentality on the part of some mischievous Northern politicians.
The assertion that there are more people in the North than in the South is an insult to intelligence and commonsense. All over West Africa, the coastal states are more densely and highly populated than the arid desert hinterlands. Nobody has been able to come up with a reasonable reason why Nigeria would be the only exception to this rule. Most of the people in Egypt live on a strip along the Nile River. But in Nigeria, we are meant to believe most of the people live in the desert.

Some make the case that Northern polygamy leads to more births. If so, why are there only 30 million people in Saudi Arabia, a country more than twice the size of Nigeria? The Saudis are also polygamous. If there are so many more live-births in the North than in the South, this should be reflected in children immunization programs: but it is not.

Everything we know about demographics contradicts the inflated population of the North relative to the South. The economic opportunities in the South far outweigh those in the North. That means economic migration is bound to be southward and not northward. The states with the highest internally generated revenues all come from the South; while eight of the last ten are from the North. No Northern state features in the top ten.

Mythical Kano
The North regularly trots up Kano as the largest state of the federation, but there is no doubt that this is also pure fiction. There is no way that there can be more people in Kano State than in Lagos State or even Oyo State. Let me be even more categorical. Kano cannot be as populous as Ibadan. Kano cannot even have half the population of Lagos.

We were told Kano State was bigger in population than Lagos State. Then Jigawa State was carved out of Kano in 1991. But lo and behold, the remaining rump of Kano was still bigger than Lagos. In 1991, we were told there were 5.8 million people in Kano State, while 5.7 million were in Lagos. In 2006, Kano was awarded a population of 9.4 million; more than Lagos which was given 9.1 million.

In the meantime, Jigawa was awarded 4.3 million people in 2006. If this were to be believed, it would mean Kano (including Jigawa) had outpaced Lagos by more than four million people by 2006. That is impossible. Moreover, Kano was awarded 44 local government areas; Jigawa 27 and Lagos only 20.

Why any right-thinking person would believe Kano State has more people than Lagos State is beyond me. For years, the total amount of internally generated revenue in Kano was less than 6 billion naira a year. In the last year or so, it is now averaging 20 billion. But get this: the internally generated revenue in Lagos is 219 billion naira. So why would people be moving to Kano instead of Lagos? Where are the jobs in Kano to attract them relative to Lagos?

Why would more people keep moving to Kano where there is insurgency; from Maitasine to Boko Haram, relative to Lagos where there is none? The answer is simple. The large population of Kano relative to Lagos is bogus. It is pure fiction! If there were more people in Kano than in Lagos, it would show up, for example, in waste-generation. How much waste does Kano produce relative to Lagos? The answer is only a fraction.

How many houses and physical structures are there in Kano relative to Lagos? There is no comparison. Google satellite maps show a concentration of people and houses in Kano city centre. Everywhere else is sparsely populated. This is not the case with Lagos. It is not the case with Ibadan. It is not the case with Aba. If there are so many people up North, where are the people? Where do they live? Which vehicles take them from A to B? How many of these vehicles are in Kano relative to Lagos? Only a fraction!
Magical Zamfara

Precisely because we have accepted the lie of Northern population supremacy over the South, Attahiru Jega and his INEC cohorts decided to sneak further falsehood past us. Having discovered far more double-registration of voters in the North than in the South, INEC still went ahead to create additional polling units, allocating a disproportionate number of these to the North. However, the very audacity of INEC in the attempted perpetration of this fraud has brought to light certain anomalies in the 2011 elections, especially as it relates to the North-West.

INEC’s recent cleanup exercise of the voters register is a big indictment of the North. INEC discovered that there are far more double-registration of voters in the North than in the South. The greatest fraud in this regard is committed in the North-West, and the most fraudulent state in the country turns out to be Zamfara.

Sokoto and Zamfara states border the Republic of Niger. Niger Republic is 19 times bigger than Sokoto and Zamfara put together in land area. And yet, we are meant to believe that in 2006, Sokoto and Zamfara had a combined total population of 6.9 million; more than half of Niger Republic’s population of 12.9 million.

Zamfara’s fictitious population in the 2006 census was 3.2 million. Nevertheless, INEC registered 2 million voters for Zamfara for the 2011 elections. That means 62.5% of the people in Zamfara registered to vote. (This is roughly equal to the 64% of people who registered to vote in the 2012 elections in the United States; a country of far higher voter-awareness and socialisation). This is fraud of the highest order for the simple reason that 62.5% of the population of Zamfara cannot be eligible to vote.

The voting age in Nigeria is 18 years. According to U.N. demographics, 44% of Nigerians are below the age of 15. This means under no circumstances can 50% of the population anywhere in Nigeria be said to have registered to vote in any election. It is not surprising therefore that although INEC registered 2 million voters for the 2011 elections in Zamfara, the same INEC discovered in its clean-up exercise this year that 1.1 million of those voters (over 50%) were fraudulent; the result of double registration.

Voodoo results
That means only 914,886 of the names on the Zamfara register could be verified as not pertaining to double registration. (This does not tell us how many of the remaining names are fictitious). But then get this: according to INEC records, 927,219 people voted in Zamfara in the 2011 presidential election; mostly for Buhari. That means more votes were cast in Zamfara than the total number of legitimately-registered voters, according to the revelation of INEC’s clean-up exercise.

Let us put this in stark terms. It means, according to INEC, over 100% of the Zamfara electorate voted in 2011. What malarkey! By the time we factor in the fictitious names that must have been in the register, we can see that the figures coming out of Zamfara have nothing whatsoever to do with reality. In Zamfara, there is procedural inflation of figures pertaining to population and elections.

This gives us an idea of how fraudulent the North-West of Nigeria is with regard to population and electoral figures. This is not to say that manipulation and falsification of figures is not standard operational procedure in other states of the federation, but INEC revealed that it is most exaggerated in the North in general and in the North-West in particular.

It is not surprising therefore that, in the 2011 presidential election, there were 10.6 million “voters” from the North-West alone; twice the number of voters from either the South-West (4.6 million) or the South-East (5 million). This is preposterous, and is nothing but one big lie!

Back to Jega

It is on this fictitious super-structure of a larger population in the North relative to the South that Jega’s INEC based its outrageous allocation of 21,000 additional polling booths to the North, relative to 8,000 to the South.

In defense of this regional-chauvinism, Hakeem Baba-Ahmad added insult to injury by saying: “Jega admitted that many states in the south did not even deserve the number of units they got, but for the inclusion of the principle of fairness and equity. In other words, if INEC had been strict in sharing out the units in accordance with voting population and geography, the north would have received even more.” What poppycock!
In what appears to be the triumph of commonsense and logic, the Senate has advised Jega to suspend the allocation of new polling units until after the 2015 general elections. That should be the end of the matter. People who don’t understand how the Nigerian political system works feel Jega can ignore this advice. He cannot! The legislative branch of the government has oversight powers over the executive branch. Such a directive from the legislature to an arm of the government is not subject to debate. It must be obeyed otherwise Jega will be sanctioned.
O
I repeat having a Muslim region ,doesnt guarantee multiple population.

Latest statistics have shown that in 2016 more than half a million Saudi men are reported to have more than one spouse at a time. ... A recent annual report on polygamy, a common practice in Saudi Arabia, has revealed that around 73000 men between the age of 25 to 49 engaged in polygamous.

By Femi Aribisala

Google map have shown evidence that the northern population is a fallacy,your cell phone sim card names and regions have shown evidence of the fraudulent population, yall pressent up north.I dont care about your population up north, but yall are using a false population index report ,to steal economic, and political advantage, away from the resources of the south.

Bye

Zandena:
I can't waste my time reading all your useless and fictitious population arithmetics, however,i disagree with you in the following areas:
1. That Saudi Arabia citizens practice polygamy is a fallacy that only you know where you got it. Interestingly, Saudis seems to dislike polygamy in their marital lives as only 1 in 10 of Saudis have more than one wife. In the recent statistics on age bracket under which Saudi women get married has skyrocketed to unprecedented levels as females now get married in their 40s. This is due to the amount charged for dowry which has become unaffordable to many willing prospective husbands; this has made government pegged a maximum amount payable for dowry;
2. Your Chad, Niger Republic's scenarios as your skewed and myopic juxtaposition to the northern Nigeria doesn't stand any where not even in logic but in commonsense .
You want to create a platform for anarchy in Nigeria by ignorantly or deliberately trying to puncture the existing facts and figures

Just read the trash you posted and compare with the scientific write up posted and you will realize that you are an irredeemable dunce. Of all the facts laid down, your attempt to debunk the write up predicated only on Saudis not liking polygamy because of dowry. Does that debunk the population size of the Saudis? Infact, why am I even talking to this meathead. Mtcheewww.

dragunov:


Just read the trash you posted and compare with the scientific write up posted and you will realize that you are an irredeemable dunce. Of all the facts laid down, your attempt to debunk the write up predicated only on Saudis not liking polygamy because of dowry. Does that debunk the population size of the Saudis? Infact, why am I even talking to this meathead. Mtcheewww.

I just wasted my seconds in reading the hogwash above, your dumpness has no equal on this planet!
What is logic in that sorrowful misadventure that tries to equate a country's landmass to population of people living in it? Let's me lend you some sense for a minute on why is China the most populous nation in the world and China is still not the largest in terms of land mass! Your education has failed you big!
Didn't you read through the lines. Only 1 in every 10 men in Saudi Arabia has more than one wife and females marriage age bracket is 30 years and above according to the recent statistics released. The ratio of men with more than one wife in Northern Nigeria is 8:10 with 2/3 of females below age 20 getting married.
Most popular Islamic scholars in Saudi Arabia are not polygamous with 5 children maximum, same not applicable in northern Nigeria.
You can deny all the above with institutional facts and not ridiculous fiction!

Zandena:

I just wasted my seconds in reading the hogwash above, your dumpness has no equal on this planet!
What is logic in that sorrowful misadventure that tries to equate a country's landmass to population of people living in it? Let's me lend you some sense for a minute on why is China the most populous nation in the world and China is still not the largest in terms of land mass! Your education has failed you big!
Didn't you read through the lines. Only 1 in every 10 men in Saudi Arabia has more than one wife and females marriage age bracket is 30 years and above according to the recent statistics released. The ratio of men with more than one wife in Northern Nigeria is 8:10 with 2/3 of females below age 20 getting married.
Most popular Islamic scholars in Saudi Arabia are not polygamous with 5 children maximum, same not applicable in northern Nigeria.
You can deny all the above with institutional facts and not ridiculous fiction!

Your dumbness is legendary! The writer mentioned countries within Africa with larger land mass and same culture, tribe and religion. Say way of life. Same habit of reproducing like mice. Same thinking. And perhaps more resources. Yet you fixate your sorry as.s on the Saudis alone. Ok brainiac, say something about Chad, Niger and the rest. To nail your own coffin, you talk about China. Come on! You equate the circumstances in China with that of Northern Nigeria? Do you even think you are exposed enough to make such comparison? Shiiiiiii!

So Zamfara has more literate girls and women more than Kebbi?

I don't believe this SDGs analysis.

Tomek09:
So Zamfara has more literate girls and women more than Kebbi?

I don't believe this SDGs analysis.

Have you been to Kebbi and zamfara?

Nigeria itself is a lie

The foundation of this country is faulty. It's build on lies and and mostly favours the narrative of the north . Peace and unity is still very far

Only fools that have not been to northern states can believe that nonsense figures from census.

I work as a supervisor during 2006 census in Zamfara state, I know what happened the forged figures & allocate to themselves, even under very high mortality rate, diseased prone region & desert.

I was not supprised to see Zamfara census figures, it's a case study.
NIGERIA it self is a fraud so the fraud will continue until Nigeria finally dissolve in smaller independent states.

walemoney007:
Have you been to Kebbi and zamfara?

Yes. Kebbi is far ahead literate wise.

If real census is carried out in Nigeria, Igbos will be the most populated group. Followed closely by yorubas then Hausa.

Not everyone that speaks Hausa in the north is actually Hausa.

Fulanis by themselves will probably be around 9th or 10th most populous group.

Allsouls:
Only fools that have not been to northern states can believe that nonsense figures from census.

I work as a supervisor during 2006 census in Zamfara state, I know what happened the forged figures & allocate to themselves, even under very high mortality rate, diseased prone region & desert.

I was not supprised to see Zamfara census figures, it's a case study.
NIGERIA it self is a fraud so the fraud will continue until Nigeria finally dissolve in smaller independent states.

I worked for the census at Anambra....it was same rigging.

horsepower102:
If real census is carried out in Nigeria, Igbos will be the most populated group. Followed closely by yorubas then Hausa.

Not everyone that speaks Hausa in the north is actually Hausa.

Fulanis by themselves will probably be around 9th or 10th most populous group.

ahhhh..I think Hausas will still carry the day, there are many pure Hausawas than you think.

One Nigeria is a scam. Know this know peace