Nigerians were told the other day that a national population and housing census will be conducted in April next year. The decision, according to the chairman of the National Population Commission (NPC), Nasir Isa-Kwarra, was reached at the last meeting of the National Council of State. The last national census took place in 2006. Ideally, the exercise is supposed to be conducted every 10 years. The headcount, if it holds, will be the fifth since Nigeria’s independence in 1960.
Ordinarily, the plan to hold a national census would have been a welcome development. This is especially so considering the fact the planned census is coming some 17 years after the last headcount. But the plan at this time is fraught with frightening problems. The timing is wrong through and through.
Coming just a month after a general election that promises to be earth-shaking, we cannot but wonder why the NPC has chosen this inauspicious time in our national calendar for this all-important exercise. What if the general election generates issues that may not be settled before April, the month set aside for the census? It is also incongruous that the exercise is coming up just a month to the end of the life of the administration that is putting in place the national headcount. Are the matters that must arise from the national census going to be passed over to an incoming administration to deal with? Scenarios such as these will be most untidy. No administration worth its name would walk into such incongruences with its eyes wide open.
The Muhammadu Buhari administration, no doubt, is very much aware of these hangups. That it has decided to sidestep them in spite of the obvious odds speaks volumes about its disposition. By its decision to venture into a national census at this time, the administration has copiously immersed itself into the politics of number, which is one of the contentious issues that have always divided the north and south of the country. It is a well known fact that no national headcount has ever been accepted by the various regional or geopolitical blocs that make up the country. The manipulation of the census figures, from available records, began from the very beginning. The numerical superiority, which the North claims over the South has always been questioned. Those who are properly schooled in demographics are somewhat bewildered that it is only in Nigeria that a rain forest region is said to be less populated than an arid, grassland territory. The received impression is that the bogus population being ascribed to the North is a fluke after all.
Unfortunately, the country has never had the opportunity to conduct a national census that can pass the test of acceptability. One of the encumbrances in this regard is that all the heads of the NPC that conducted past censuses were all northerners. In Nigeria, a national population census has never taken place under the watch of a southerner. In fact, it is believed that one of the major reasons we have a delayed national headcount is the plot by the Buhari administration to ensure that the exercise is not held under the headship of a southerner. That probably explains why he wasted the entirety of his first four-year tenure without giving a serious thought to the conduct of a national headcount. The Buhari administration began to look in the direction of a national population census when he replaced the last holder of the office, a southerner, with the present chairman.
The decision to conduct the headcount a month before the end of the Buhari administration even points to a certain desperation. Must the census hold under this administration? Since there is no time left for the administration to undertake a national census, why not leave it for the incoming government? What the desperation to conduct the headcount suggests under this untidy circumstance is that the government of the day has something up its sleeves. Like the white cloth of Toni Morrison’s creation, the Buhari order has plans. There is a reason behind its desperation. And this may not be unconnected with the plot to perpetuate the long-standing design, which places the North ahead of the South in the area of numerical strength. It is perhaps being feared that any lacuna in this regard on the part of the present administration may be exploited by a new administration whose predilection may not be predicted at this time.
Beyond the politics embedded in the Buhari plan, something much more fundamental ought to have taken precedence over political considerations. Anybody who means well for Nigeria will readily admit the fact that a national census scheduled at the same time with a national election is a recipe for disaster. It is tantamount to inviting double trouble unto oneself. One is as contentious as the other. Why will a government interested in national stability saddle itself with two volatile issues at the same time?
The indiscretion of the Buhari administration in this matter becomes even more worrisome considering the fact that the government has thrown Nigeria into hysterics on matters of security. The country is not secure. Human life has lost its meaning in Buhari’s Nigeria. People get killed every minute of the day in Nigeria. The administration has failed woefully to protect life and property. If ours were a country where honour has a place in our national life, the Buhari administration would have resigned. An administration that came into office on the wings of its avowals on security cannot, in good conscience, continue to rule over the people in the face of its monumental failure to deliver on its campaign promise. The truth is that the government of the day is an embarrassment to Nigeria. Rather than be strutting about as if nothing is the matter, the government ought to be sober. It is supposed to reflect deeply on how it brought the country to this sorry bend.
If the government of the day were to be one with some modicum of honour, it would work hard to ensure that it manages, no matter how tough, to conduct a credible general election next year. One of the things it ought to put in place to get this done is security. It should work round the clock in the bid to stem the tide of insecurity. Government ought to know that, if nothing urgent is done, and swiftly too, the country could degenerate to the pit darkness. Already, the dark clouds are here. Such a scary scenario is ominous for the forthcoming general election. This should worry Buhari and his government. But rather than save the country from imminent chaos, the administration is busy muddling up the situation with the uncritical plan to lump together a general election with a national population census. What an indiscretion!