Census exercises in Nigeria seem to be among the most ridiculed activities in Nigeria. People in the south accuse northerners of inflating their numbers to include their cows and goats. The northerners return the accusation saying that southerners inflate their population to include their ‘ewedu’ in the West and ‘akpu’ in the East. However, one thing is obvious, there has never been an accurate data collection in Nigeria. Reasons for this insincere data collection and presentation in Nigeria may not be far-fetched.
A young man described how most people apply perfumes. He said: when applying one’s own perfume, you spray fuu fuu, that’s all. But when applying other people’s perfumes, you first shake it well, before you begin to spray fuuuuu fuuuuu, shiiiiii shiiiii, shaaaa shaaaa waaaa waaa and waaaaaaa!! Even when the owner wants to collect the perfume, you still beg to apply again to the trouser, noting that your trouser is a bit dirty (has perfume become soap?). Expenses doesn’t ever seem enough when it comes from another person’s pockets. Most people tend to remember all their seen and unseen needs when other people spend, but these same people apply scale of preference and austerity measures when they have to spend their own resources.
The most precious commodity of national interest in Nigeria now is crude oil, which is deposited in the Niger Delta, but according to Nigeria’s mineral and mining act is owned jointly by Nigerians. The foreign exchange obtained by the sale of this crude oil has been constantly distributed to the different regions, based on their population and also according to the disposition of the person in charge of the particular regime. So, the more the population a region presents, the more local governments, federal constituencies and allocations it is likely to get from the oil-money bonanza.
Secondly, a region’s reported population contributes during general elections to validate printed and unprinted ballot papers that are allocated to the region according to the census figure. It is commonly believed that the election winner becomes the sharer of the dividends from the oil bonanza, and thus, can influence the quantity of the shares going to a particular region.
From the way Nigeria was structured to maintain unitary ownership of rights to all lands with mineral resources, this fraud may never stop, and there may never be any real effort to develop the productive capacity of other regions or to engage the young minds and labour in other regions. This is why the Nigerian youths are enjoined to learn the principles of social organization, especially at Restartnaija, and to get ready for the moment to make informed demands.