According to Chief Festus Odimegwu the chair of the National Population Commission (NPC), a fresh national census will be conducted for Nigeria in 2016. On the bright side, the census would finally resolve the vexing question of how many we really are in Nigeria; but on the flip side, a whooping 600 billion Naira is required to conduct it. If you note that the last census conducted 6 years ago in 2006 cost 37.78 billion Naira ‘only’ (of which the Nigerian tax payer paid only 52% while the European Union paid the balance), then you might be concerned that something bigger than galloping inflation could be afoot here.
I appreciate Odimegwu’s frank confession of his (and our) ignorance of our population. But, such a confession of ignorance coming from the NPC is extremely shocking since one recalls that the agency conducted a national census in 2006 and has calculated and announced annual population growth figures since then. Odimegwu is not the first Nigerian to question our numbers. You may recall a similar debate between Simon Kolawole the ThisDay columnist and then Samu’ila Danko Makama the former chair of the NPC in which Kolawole had famously accused Nigeria of playing politics with figures while Makama in his brilliant reply concluded that at the total cost of N37.78 billion, the 2006 census was a sterling example of the certain things that could be done right by Nigerians. I don’t think that Odimegwu shares Makama’s pride.
Only 6 years after what Makama called “the biggest peace-time activity” in Nigeria and with a budget up from 37.78 billion to 600 billion Naira, Odimegwu is looking to conduct a seriously bigger peace time activity in Nigeria. But to what effect?
Since the results of the 2006 census were published there have been criticisms on various fronts. Kolawole’s concern, for example, is that one never again gets the chance to “meet” all of the millions counted in the census in other fora such as at the polling booth. If you think that the near 100% voter turnout in some places during the 2011 General Elections puts a dent in Kolawole’s thesis, then you should know that the overall voter turnout in the 2011 presidential elections was only 53.68%. So where were the remaining 34 million (or 46% of) adult Nigerians during the vote? Still from the 2006 census some were shocked to learn that contrary to the southward migration trend in West Africa that is pushing its coastal cities into the Atlantic, more Nigerians lived in Kano than in Lagos. Even for those communities who questioned the figured ‘allotted’ them in the census before the census tribunal, we now know on judicial authority that there was a census in 2006.
So if 6 years after the 2006 census, Odimegwu invokes the institutional authority of the National Population Commission to declare that “Nigeria has no data. People can’t really tell you precisely what the population is”, then we have bigger problem than is at first obvious. Does Odimegwu disown the 2006 National Census conducted by his agency (and largely largely upheld at the tribunals)? Does he also disown the subsequent annual population estimates published by the NPC under the seal of the State? Do not think that I am encouraging Odimegwu to be dishonest and deny the ‘lack of data’; far from that, I am asking him to be accountable to Nigerians whose 600 billion Naira he hopes to spend and whose 38 billion Naira his organization has spent only 6 years ago.
The generic criticism that Odimegwu offers such as “lack of enough credible and imaginative leaders in political governance, particularly in recent times” would not suffice since, I suppose, he is not able to repair the rot of leadership ahead of, or with the 2016 census. Nigerians deserve to know what went wrong in 2006, where errors occurred, who was responsible for such errors and what sanctions have been imposed and what remedial effort are being implemented before embarking on another ‘big peacetime activity’. Failure to undertake such frank discussion casts aspersions on Odimegwu’s inherent messianic claim.
There is another layer to the error of Odimegwu. In the 2016 census he has the plan of “unifying the similar projects being conducted by various agencies of government” through biometric data capture. True, it makes no sense that my finger prints and other bio data have been ‘captured’ by the Nigeria Immigration Service (to issue my passport), by the National Identity Management Commission (to issue my National identification card) as well as every 4 years by the Independent National Electoral Commission (to issue my voter’s card) and would be captured afresh by the Federal Road Safety Commission if I applied for a driving license. Yet it is my understanding that these agencies are required by law and funded by our tax to collect and process data for those specific purposes.
Odimegwu’s Presidential consent and the slush fund of 600 billion Naira might not be enough to create a central bio-database which all agencies of government, researchers and citizens could readily access. Someone needs to tell Odimegwu that some laws might need to change before this unity could be achieved and spending some of that 600 billion naira on consultations ought to be a worthwhile initiative. Still, while Odimegwu has received presidential go-ahead to conduct the 2016 census that would aggregate all biometric data, Vice President Namadi Sambo is still chairing a committee that seeks to determine whose job it is to aggregate the same demographic data in Nigeria.
Now we come to the height of Odimegwu’s ignorance. He claimed that “any Nigerian who is not captured in the next demographic survey beginning next year will not be recognised as a citizen of Nigeria, after the 2016 national population census”. In order words, any Nigerian who misses that census becomes stateless. I think enough commentators have taken time to educate Odimegwu that there is no easy way a citizen of Nigeria by birth could lose citizenship and a conviction in the court of law is required to strip naturalized citizenships. But it is important to emphasize and lament the blatant constitutional ignorance with which our nation is being governed. If it is true that the current leadership of the NPC equate citizenship with inclusion in the census figure then it follows that all residents (non-citizens) of Nigeria who are also obliged to be enumerated in the census would then, on account of being counted, become citizens. Okay oh!
Now there is a national crisis. According to Odimegwu “We will raise money from the sale of data to the private sector to run the agency”. I do not know about you, but I don’t want my biometric data being hawked for sale to the highest bidder who could be anyone from CIA to Al-Qaeda. My concern is, if the nation could not afford to conduct a census from within its coffers or as a partnership as was the case in 2006, then should there be one at all? I don’t dispute that accurate population and demographic data are needed in governing the country. But was it lack of population data that led to the unfortunate crash of Dana Air Flight 992?
Odimegwu is right in questioning the relevance of a census that not only ignores, but vehemently rejects vital demographic details like ethnic origin and religion for planning in Nigeria. But what is at the moment very unclear to me is how the available data is being used for planning in Nigeria. If we are to achieve any progress in people-centered development planning in Nigeria, the starting point should move beyond the simplistic “there is no data” to the point where we could identify how having data has made a difference in some areas and what more we could achieve if we had more data. It is also important to find out how we can make census automated such that those who are born are added and those who die are deleted; it could be done. It should be done.
_________
