Towards achieving a credible 2017 census

Unlike population movement popularly referred to as migration, the process of evolution and growth of human population is said to be organic, i.e. it takes place in a slow and natural way, rather than suddenly. As such, any attempt to manipulate population of any known geographical entity within a country is not a healthy development […]

Unlike population movement popularly referred to as migration, the process of evolution and growth of human population is said to be organic, i.e. it takes place in a slow and natural way, rather than suddenly. As such, any attempt to manipulate population of any known geographical entity within a country is not a healthy development and is retrogressive.
Population study is as old as the history of Nigeria’s colonial times, and had always proved to be indispensable tool in planning for national development. Beginning from the first ever census in Nigeria (1866), through the era of population estimation (1911-1931) to the present day national population and housing census, successive regimes had been making frantic effort at taking censuses with a view to establishing realistic and authentic figures of people living in the country; knowing the structure of the population; enabling the country to forecast its future economic needs and assisting the government in the distribution of resources across the country, to mention but a few.
 Census as defined is a procedure of systematically acquiring and recording information about the members of a given population, whereas population census is a total process of collecting, compiling and publishing demographic, economic and social data pertaining at a specific time to all persons in a country or delineated territory.
Giving the overview above, it follows that the proposed 2017 headcount is in line with the united Nations recommendation of a ten-year interval to conduct a census, even through this one will take place one year behind schedule. This is because the last census conducted by the National Population Commission (NPC) was in March, 2016 which the total population of Nigeria at 140,003,542 according to available statistics. Of this figure, 71,769,859 were male and 68,293,683 females.
 Now that the conduct of the upcoming census coincides with the era of change regime, we expect all the keys players and relevant stakeholders to readily key into the president’s change mantra, in order to make it a census of change capable of harmonizing demographic data for national development.  To be one that will bring a halt to the unfounded endless squabbles between the north and the south over who is more populous than the other. Thus, keeping all sentiment and other primordial consideration aside, conscious effort must be made to guard against those impediments, irregularities and criticisms that trailed the previous census.
Comparatively, the south as geographical entity is educationally more developed than the north. In other words, there are more people with western education and/or literacy in the south than the north. This is largely due to the early arrival of the missionary in the area, coupled with subsequent resistance in the north occasioned by the already established Islamic system of education. Hence, in this regard it has a higher population of educated people than the north.
Conversely, it is a verifiable fact that, the north is well known to be a relatively densely populated area. The growth pattern of the population has always been geometrical, which is attributable to the most commonly practiced polygamous type of marriage, early marriage practice, high fertility rate and of course food availability amongst others. This, God- blessed human resources of males and females include: able-bodied persons, school children, out- of -school children, the teeming unemployed youths, the destitute and of course the Almajiris flooding the streets of our major cities. Other important sub- populations are the bulky peasant farmers, artisans, entrepreneurs, civil servants, politicians, technocrats, professionals and captains of industries etc.
As such, an authentic distribution of persons based on their attributes can greatly assist the government in appropriately tailoring development to the target groups.
In line with achieving the said objectives, the katsina state government aware of its pride of place, has since been proactive to inaugurate the state level census committee. This is with a view to starting preparations for mobilization, sensitization and awareness in the community so as to have a hitch-free and peaceful conduct before, during and after the exercise. To this end, it is very imperative and logistically wise to co-opt on the main committee and other sub-committees, experts who are knowledgeable in population studies and people with integrity, as well.
It therefore becomes imperative for the government at all levels, to do whatever it takes, to reduce the incidence of figure inflation to the barest minimum so as to be realistic. There is need to demonstrate to the world that, the era where people can just wake up and grossly inflate figures for attracting more of the national cake is done with.
There is no gainsaying, the fact that during the previous censuses, some local government and other geographical areas across the country who were ordinarily known to be remote and sparsely populated were grossly and corruptly allocated very high figures due to selfish interest and aggrandizement.

Ali Daura wrote this piece from Sabo-Gari Quarters, Daura, Katsina State.