Nigeria census stokes tensions
2006-03-14 09:23
Lagos - Africa's most populous nation, is about to embark on a controversial census, which some fear could reignite the ethnic, regional and religious tensions, which threaten to tear it apart.
President Olusegun Obasanjo was determined to find out just how many Nigerians there were - estimated range from between 120 and 150 million - despite fierce opposition from various powerful vested interests.
But, preparations for the March 21 to 25 exercise, the first such headcount since 1991, had already laid bare many of the deep rifts in Nigerian society that had fuelled a seven-year-old wave of unrest that had left 20 000 dead.
'Civil disturbances'
Last week, information minister Frank Nweke warned that unidentified groups planned to incite "civil disturbances in some states with a view to disrupting this month's national census" and warned of a police crackdown.
Nigeria, the highly urbanised, oil-rich west African melting pot was home to almost twice as many people as its nearest rivals on the continent: Ethiopia and Egypt.
The United Nations Population Fund put Nigeria's population in 2005 at 131.5 million. The Central Intelligence Agency reported 128 771&nbs0p;988.
When Obasanjo was lobbying the foreign governments for debt relief last year, he said he was doing so in the name of 150 million people.
Muslims, Christians 'further tensions'
However, Nigerians were not so much interested in how many countrymen and women they had, but rather in who exactly they were.
There was a constant struggle for influence between three main ethnic groups - the Yoruba, Hausa and Igbo - while the roughly 50-50 split between Muslims and Christians stoked further tensions.
Many groups wanted to maximise their turnout in the census to push their case for a greater share in the government funding and political influence. Others didn't want to be counted at all.
Okechukwu Nwaogu of the banned Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB) said: "The Igbos are not part of the census because we are not Nigerians. We are Biafrans."
Revolt against federal forces
In 1967 the Igbos of southeastern Nigeria attempted to split from Nigeria and formed a breakaway Republic of Biafra. They fought and lost a brutal three-year revolt against federal forces, which left one million dead.
Last month, during a sectarian riot in the southern city of Onitsha, machete-wielding Christian Igbo youths once more chanted "Biafra, Biafra!" as they burned the bodies of their slaughtered Muslim Hausa neighbours.
Meanwhile, federal officials had accused Islamic state governments in the north of training "Jihadist" militias.
Scores of Christians were killed in Muslim cities last month in riots triggered by cartoons of Muhammad in the Danish press. Northern Muslim leaders firmly believed their followers form a majority of Nigerians.