Kwakwanso, Haruna, Odimegwu and Nigeria’s fictional censuses By Steve Osuji

There is an age-old Igbo wisdom concerning the managing of a rascally child’s internal injury; these people of yore thought of everything you know. The scenario is this: the playful, rascally child had gone and earned himself an internal injury and his mother (it’s always mothers of course bless them) would apply the hot water dabs. Since you are not exactly sure where lies the heart of the injury, mothers, (wise as spirits), would watch carefully and determine the sore spot by the reaction of the lad as they apply the hot towel. The saying therefore translates thus: you linger upon and dab harder where the child feels the most pain.


This old tale illustrates the matter between Eze Festus Odimegwu, chairman of the Nigerian Population Commission, NPC, and some of our northern brothers notably Governor Rabiu Kwankwaso of Kano State and Malam Mohammed Haruna, a senior colleague and syndicated columnist. Odimegwu simply applied the dab where it pains most in order to heal an injury fast and expectedly, there is an angry and excited reaction from those who were living off the old, retrogressive order.

But before I return to Kwankwaso and Mohammed, let me blame Odimegwu for belittling himself by accepting such a silly job. One of the most brilliant men to be found anywhere, first he ought to have known that what we call census in Nigeria are fictional, farcical and silly waste of time and resources and as long as we are yoked the way we are under this dour flag of ours, you will always have the same falsehood he talks about which we have had since 1816 as he claims. Therefore, one expects him to be perspicacious enough to understand that he could never change a system that had been ingrained and perpetrated for over 200 years, with crafty British colonialists helping to perfect it, we must hasten to add. He ought to have known that census in Nigeria is the northern hegemonists’ primary instrument of domination.

With their contrived census figures, they get more states, more LGAs and more electoral wards. With their bogus head count they dominate the military and security organs; the civil service and the entire government apparatus. They heft more allocation from the federation account, and they perpetually make the rest of us, especially Ndigbo second class citizens. One is particularly disgusted that Odimegwu didn’t seem to have this perspective otherwise he would never have taken a job that has been perfectly designed to fail. If he knew he would never have gone about opening his mouth so wide to speak so ignorantly about changing the system. How dose he plan to change the warped template of Nigeria’s head count? Would he morph into a bionic man and be in every household in Nigeria? From Birnin Nkonji in the uppermost fringes of Sokoto State to Ribao where Taraba State kisses the Camerouns he would lead all the counting teams and man all the collation units? If he has devised a fail-proof satellite mapping technology, how can he determine that one quarter of the much-touted huge population of Kano, Kwankwaso country are not probably Ndigbo and perhaps one third of the inhabitants are Christians, among other vital stats that cannot be captured from above?

One was appalled that after years of excellent work life in the best of multinational corporations and with the best global minds; after the self-lacerating third term ruckus and the circumstance of his exit from his high office he remains quite excitable if not exuberant. Even if he has manufactured a wand to conduct the perfect census for Nigeria, considering the sensitivity of the process and the deep import of a national head count in a primitive society such as ours, one would expect him to keep his strategies very close to his chest. Lastly on Odimegwu’s shortcomings, he also suffers the Igboman disease: he tends to love Nigeria more than other Nigerians, he wants to outdo the average Nigerian and he strives harder and wants to be more nationalistic in an environment where constituent nationalities take care of their tribal interests first. One quick example: while Nnamdi Azikiwe was playing the nationalist (to the eternal pain of Ndigbo), Obafemi Awolowo and Ahmadu Bello were more interested in taking care of their people and their region.

Having said all these, I think Odimegwu should quit that silly job and as Ndigbo say, ka o we kwa yere onwe ya ugwu. Because Odimegwu utterly disrespected himself by accepting an accursed job that is why Kwankwaso, at the drop of a pin, would brand him a drunkard who has been inebriated from brewing beer all his life; but we know the hypocrites who drink in their closets and from their prayer kettles in the bid to fool their god. It is not enough to recommend his sack he has to be abused too. Haba Mr. governor how really would census figure affect your running of Kano State today?

My brother of the pen, Malam Haruna was, true to type, quick to bring his lucid mind to bear on a farce. To be fair, every part of the country now does their best to rig the census figures but the north just has the patent to the ‘winning’ formula. But when highly learned men like Haruna begins to abet and justify a well-known fallacy then doom beckons on the land. Why is our country so distraught and disheveled today, we wander about as if we are not part of the world community? It is because we are living many lies the worst of which is that we base our policies on fictitious headcounts. Haruna, like most of us, know full well that we have been living a lie but because it benefits him, it is okay. I am sorry to say that he suffers acute myopia. The earlier we return to the path of truth, the better for us all.

On the other hand, the likes of odumegwu if they are wise, instead of straining to fix Nigeria’s broken China, must begin to apply themselves to the urgent project of rejecting the vassal status Nigeria has consigned Ndigbo to. Census my foot!