RE: POPULATION LAGOS VERSUS KANO

PUBLISHED REJOINDERS AND email Reactions to the author

as posted below Are IN THEIR ORIGINAL FORMS

Yushau A. Shuaib,

 Your article on businessday shows how ignorant you are. Your case on Kano and Lagos shows how backward you are. And on Niger Delta your notion about them is devilish and wicked

"emmanuel chucks"

emmanuelchcks@yahoo.com

Dear Yushau A. Shuaib:

Let me first congratulate you for engaging in such a high level analysis of the Lagos/Kano, and North/South census controversy. Your article was very interesting and replete with good analysis, and to you a great credit. I disagree with your early marriage and polygamy factor which you cited as an advantage to the North and Kano . Such factors are constant as long as census counts have been conducted in Nigeria , and historically have not made much difference between the North and the South. For such variables to now surface in 2007 as part of the population growth in the North is not convincing. Don't forget that polygamy is present in  Lagos State as well.You can't discount the impact of industrialization on population growth. Lagos alone may account for close to 50% of Nigeria 's industrial manufacturing base. It has the busiest airport and sea port in Nigeria which attracts people, businesses, and industrial manufacturing potential.

You also said that MOSSAB and MEND discouraged indigence of their areas from being counted. Do you have any solid factual evidence to support such claim? Your other point is that Lagos had depleted its workforce to Abuja . About how many people do you think such workforce constitute? I am sure that you will agree with me that population inflation in Nigeria have always been present because of the impact of population on revenue sharing. When oil revenues stops flowing, we may be in a position to know how many people actually live in Nigeria . In future, Nigeria should move away from revenue sharing using population count as the sole factor.

Sincerely,

Paul Okechukwu Oranika

oranika@yahoo.com

Nigerians will do well to accept the census figures and move on with the building of the nation. Census anywhere in the world is merely an estimation of the people present in a particular area at a particular time. No nation, not even the most advanced could boast of 100% count of its citizens. A reason why censors should be done every 10 or 15 years.( I don’t remember which UN recommended) The debate between Lagos and Kano is an exercise in futility. Polygamy is never a yardstick for determining the legitimacy of censor results otherwise every state of the North should have recorded significantly more numbers than reported.

What is the hullabaloo about these census figures anyway? How does any census figures in Nigeria benefit Nigerians. Have we ever, in the life of our nation, used population figures as basis of our national development? I mean, in the decades that we did not have any population data did we stop making plans for the future? We created more states, we had a constitution, a return to civilian rule, apportionment of seats in the States and National Assemblies and senates, electric generation and water supply did not improve, unemployed and unemployable graduates litter our state capitals etc. It is not like given an accurate population count Nigeria will solve all her problems. Let’s move and pray that in the future we will not only get it right but use it to better the lives of the citizens.

kquala1@yahoo.com

Two words.  Monetary Allocations.

Sylvester Fadal

mocof@yahoo.com

Yushau Shuaib

Your reasons given here for why the population of Kano could be higher than that of Lagos is rather weak and porous.

1. "...while Lagosians are mostly monogamous with single wife and few children, the majority of Kanonians are polygamous with many wives and large  number of children"

Is it every man in Kano who is polygamous (or even married, including the almagari and street beggars), and has large families? Can men in Kano , polygamous not withstanding, marry more woman than are available in the population? And is it all Lagosians that are monogamous?

2. "...with the modern trend that has seen to late marriages amongst Lagosians and by extension southerners, Kano like other Northern states promotes early marriage amongst the sexes to guard against promiscuity.  ..."

This may affect the age at which girls marry in Kano and other Northern states, or about the boys/men who marry them? Don't children in Kano and other Northern states ever go to school or learn any trades before they marry?

3. "...because of its small landmass and higher costs of living, Lagos is invaded by influx of workers everyday who reside in  towns from neighbouring states (like Iju Ajuwon, Alagbado, Alakuko, Sango Ota, Ibadan etc), workers in Kano reside within its vast landmass and due to affordable costs of accommodation. .."

And where do the the people of Kano find work, since merely occupying an extensive Savannah landmass neither provides jobs, nor does it guarantee ability to feed your family? Or Do people in Kano and other Northern state not have to feed their large families?

4. "...workers in Kano reside within its vast landmass and due to affordable costs of accommodation. .."

And in what industries precisely are these "workers in Kano " employed?

5. "while some districts in Lagos are strictly commercial and industrial with restrictions on residential (e.g parts of Apapa, Ikeja and Victoria Island that are usually deserted on weekends), such districts in Kano have permissible and safe residential outlets..."

Please name some such districts in Kano that are as commercial and industrial as Apapa, Ikeja and Victoria Island in Lagos .

6. "while it is glaring that the  population density in Lagos is due to its limited land space, the  density in Kano may not be prominent because of its spacious savanna"

And since when does a spacious savanna provide the kind of jobs and means of livelihood to maintain a large population? By this argument, Niger or Chad should have a larger population than Nigeria , and Ouagadougou should be bigger than Lagos or Kano .

You are letting your ethnicity get the better of you here. Simply because you are Hausa and from the North, then a grossly erroneous population miscount must be justified by every means possible - as decreed by the British before their inglorious departure from Nigeria . How sad! One would imagine the North would have produced more enlightened and educated thinkers by now. But, they don't send their children to school - they all marry early in order to raise large families...according to you. When the oil in the Niger Delta finally dries out - which it will some day soon - we shall all see how Kano and these other Northern states will be able to feed their large populations. And we shall not allow an army of almagaris and beggars from the North to invade and despoil Southern cities and townships, like a swarm of locusts.

Dr. Valentine Ojo"

valojo@md.metrocast.net

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