20th October, 2014
By Ben Nanaghan
Before now, I would have staked my soul to vouch for Prof Attahiru Jega’s integrity, honour and professional impeccability when President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan appointed him Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission in 2010. I wondered if the President was not committing political hara-kiri. I therefore decided to choose the path of “Siddon look”.
And it was not too long before the learned professor swallowed the bait, hook line and sinker. I know how enormously difficult it is to resist the mighty weight of northern pressure groups on Prof. Jega to thwart the presidential ambition of any southern candidate with an extra bonus of 6,000,000 votes by the creation of 12,000 extra polling units in 11 Northern states plus Abuja.
The new stormy petrel of Northern politics, Mr. Nasir el Rufai and a former CBN governor have teamed up in an unholy dual alliance to wreck whatever President Goodluck Jonathan stands for. Their achievements in the Boko Haram sector have given them a standing ovation among Northern elders who watch and gloat from the sideline. Last year the duo induced the ASUU Chairman Mr. Nasir Isa Fagge to ensure the ASUU strike lasted the distance. The group also with dramatic finesse shops for and creates another Shekau wherever the existing one dies in battle. It is therefore not a miracle to witness the exit of Mr. Integrity’s (Jega) saintly scaffold which is a twin engine device of northern Nigeria to deliberately and perpetually hold Nigeria’s Presidency hostage to justify the Northern slogan of “Born to rule”.
Nigeria’s colonial rulers knew of the intellectual, infrastructural and human capital deficiency of the north. They also liked the northern political leaders because they were complacent and pliant. They were also not as turbulent as their southern leaders as typified by Chief Obafemi Awolowo and Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe who were prime intellectual assets and fiery agitators for the independence of a democratic Nigeria. Of course the north kicked against independence and became great favourite of Nigeria’s colonial masters.
The colonial masters therefore seeing the realistic vulnerability of the North manipulated all census figures to favour the North to ensure a permanent political hegemony for the North. For instance the Nigerian 1952/1953 census figures made it possible for the North to have 174 members in the then House of Representatives with a total of 312 members. The Eastern Region had 73 members, western region had 62 while Lagos had 3 members. The North’s electoral size was created and made far bigger than the East, the West and even Lagos all put together. The British were happy as far as the North enjoyed numerical advantage to retain political power.
The 1973 census was by far the most controversial in Nigeria. The figures as announced by Gen. Yakubu Gowon was 83 million with the North having an overwhelming majority over the south. The protests were instantaneous in the South and Gen Gowon immediately asked for a review of the census figures which were scaled down to 79.8m. The North accused their own Gen. Yakubu Gowon of treachery. As always Chief Obafemi Awolowo took it as a challenge in a series of fiery speeches tagged “voice of courage”. The sage and avathar pooh-poohed the census figures as alarming, foreboding and “intelligent gestimate”. Gen Murtala Mohammed overthrew Gen. Yakubu Gowon in a military coup in 1975 and cancelled the 1973 census immediately.
The 1991 census gave Nigeria 88 million people with Lagos coming up tops as the most populous state with 5,685,785m and Kano State coming very close second with 5,632,040m. The 2006 census figures were typified by the Kano/Jigawa/Lagos miracle. Jigawa state was created out of Kano State in August 1991 with a population of 2,829,929. By 20006, fifteen years later Jigawa State had almost doubled its population to 4,348,649.
In 1991 Kano State population was 5,632,040 but in 2006 after the excision of Jigawa State with a population of 2,828,929 Kano state was still credited with 9,383,682 even beating Lagos which had a higher census figure of 5685785 in the 1991 head count. This is preposterous. It is pure daylight robbery organized and supervised by the National Population Commission and acquiesced to by President Olusegun Obasanjo who then had an axe to grind with the Lagos State Government and who also felt that he was like the proverbial prophet who was never accepted in his home.
There was a great and palphable relief when President Goodluck Jonathan appointed Chief Festus Boniface Odimegwu as the new helmsman at the Nigerian Population Commission (NPC). But it took only a few months of massive pressure from the North to push him out as he became a chatter box of unfulfilled ideas.
The INEC brouhaha is a well contrived, well planned and well executed Northern agenda to make assurance doubly sure that the governance of Nigeria permanently becomes the birthright of Northern citizens. The INEC agenda is the concretization of already existing age-long census anomaly which has made it possible for the North to rule Nigeria for 40 years since 1957 when Alhaji Abubakar Tafawa Balewa became Nigeria’s first Prime Minister.
If not, how can the learned professor of political science convince even illiterate Nigerians that a war ravaged state like Borno deserves an extra 1,336 polling units. Mere rational reasoning stipulates that war-torn regions can never have a sudden surge of population but rather population depletion. Definitely, there will be a massive population egression from a war-torn region to a more peaceful region. This implies that most southerners in Borno State will relocate to their home states. The Federal Capital Territory will also be an attractive alternative to our fleeing Northerners from Borno State. It should have even made more sense to reduce Borno’s existing 3,933 PUs and increase all southern states and the FC T-Abuja.
Even in China with a population of 1.357 billion people 6,000,000 votes from 12000 PUs will make a big difference.
There never will be a greater injustice than Jega’s mischievous and inflated manipulation in many years to come. For instance total sum of all new PUs in the 3 geopolitical zones of the South are 8,406 while that of the North West alone where there is relative peace is 7,806. It is an unredeemable wickedness subtly perpetrated by the Northern clique headed by Nasir el Rufai who is also serving a political interest.
The level of unfairness is so unjustifiable that I deem it unimaginable that a human heart can conceive such great evil.
For instance, Ondo State was awarded 221 new polling units to complement its existing 3,009 PUs. In Ondo State PUs in the riparian communities are either grossly insufficient or just non existent. A good example is in Ebijaw ward of Odigbo LGA where there are only 13 PUs serving the entire ward.
The case of Gbenewei Community is quite pathetic. The people have to trek through muddy and winding bush paths of about 10 kilometres to get to the nearest polling unit. During rainy season, this road is impassable. Gbenewei Community and its surroundings have about 1000 eligible voters. The community has delivered their application for a polling booth which was date-stamped by INEC on 5th June 2014 but hope of approval has dwindled by the day. Hundreds of thousands are thus disenfranchised in the south especially in the coastal communities while PUs sell two-for-one-kobo in the Northern States.
It will be grossly unfair to end this piece without pouring encomia on the journalist and his team that uncovered this ignoble plot. Mr. Jide Ajani the Sunday Vanguard Editor has done for Nigeria what our pioneer journalists could not do to stop Northern political dominance because of our fake census figures which have ab-initio given the North an unfair numerical advantage. Mr. Jide Ajani in my opinion should be given National Honours for this investigative expose. This will be a pep to challenge Mr. Ajani and other journalists to unravel and demystify the mystique surrounding our national census.
Kudos also to the Vanguard newspaper which provided the environment for Mr. Jide Ajani to excel.
•Nanaghan wrote from Lagos.