You know how when you look at an atlas, it supplies you with information about just every country in the world? Anyway it got me thinking about Nigeria’s bio data. When you look at our official language, English is listed, yet there are roughly 250 other languages spoken in this great country. I once suggested that Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba be added to the country’s list of official language, however a close friend said that that would marginalize the other roughly 247 languages (are there really 250 languages?).
Anyway my argument was and still remains that these three languages should be added to the nation’s list of official languages, for one, English isn’t our mother tongue, it’s just the lingua franca, which we’ve accepted from being colonized. If Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba are accepted as the nation’s main ethnicities, then the languages should be officially accepted as the main ethnic languages and not just the Colonial-accepted English. Where is our national pride, people? We talk about moving forward; so shouldn’t we start with the obvious like culture and language?
Another issue about our bio data, although not one that needs changing, is our population. According to the last census in 2006, there are about 140 million Nigerians. 10 million less than we used to believe there were. Also revealed in the census was that they were more men than women, which is surprising, considering the excess number of women I see. Then again men notice women more than the other way around, so maybe it’s our (men’s) fault for not noticing there are more of us than them, but then that just wouldn’t be right if we men did… that would be that word that used to mean happy.
Jokes aside, when the results of the census were issued, one issue that caused a bit of a stir was the revelation that Kano state had the largest population, larger than Lagos. The Lagosians refused to believe this. This might have to do with the fact that the state with the highest population more or less gets the largest state allocation from the Federal Government, but I could be wrong about that. I don’t really follow Naija politics like that, it’s like watching a day-time soap, you’re bound to get lost if you miss an episode or two.
Anyway, this Lagos/Kano rift was explained quite delicately to me one evening while visiting the local Tantalizers restaurant near my home (they should thank me for the free drop), when I was waiting in line behind these two gentle men. Coincidentally they were men who had just carried out the 2006 census and it turned out they too had heard about the outrage coming form Lagos. Eavesdropping on their conversation, I introduced myself and indulged their attention on the matter and they explained it to me in plain English. The kind everyone is supposed to understand.
According to the census workers, while Lagos had a large daytime population, it was not that high in the night as a percentage of the state’s working population came from neighbouring states specifically mentioning Ogun state. Thus those from Ogun or elsewhere were not counted as people living in Lagos. Meanwhile Kano state had the reverse scenario. While some of the state’s population worked outside of the state, Jigawa in particular, they lived in Kano and this assertion was recently proved to me in an article by Sunday Trust (can’t remember the date) that revealed a large portion of Jigawa’s legislators don’t live in Jigawa, but rather come from Kano and go back. So that settles it… I hope.
Another statistics argument is whether the Muslim population is larger than that of the Christian or vice-versa (As if that’s a criterion for going to heaven). What I want to know is who counts the atheists and traditionalists? Aren’t they part of the population?
YOU CAN ALSO LEARN (AND EDIT INFORMATION) ABOUT NIGERIA AT, OF COURSE, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nigeria
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