A NATION BUILT ON DEMOGRAPHIC FICTION.
Nigeria’s census crisis did not begin today. It is not a modern accident. It was engineered, deliberately, strategically, and with ruthless colonial precision, by the British long before independence.
Every nation must confront its historical truths. Nigeria, unfortunately, has spent decades running away from one of its most dangerous lies:
its population figures.
THE COLONIAL ROOT OF THE LIE: HOW BRITAIN RIGGED THE FIRST CENSUSES.
Starting from 1911 all the way to 1952/53, the British manipulated Nigeria’s census figures with a singular objective:
To manufacture a permanent demographic advantage for the Northern Protectorate.
Why?
Because the British found the North easier to control through indirect rule. The Emirs provided a ready-made chain of command. The South, especially Biafra/Eastern Nigeria, was too educated, too assertive, too commercially independent, and too politically awakened to be easily subdued.
So Britain devised a simple strategy:
Population = Power.
Power = Parliament seats.
Parliament seats = Who controls Nigeria after independence.
Thus began the greatest demographic fraud in African history.
NO COUNTRY ON EARTH DEFIES GEOGRAPHY LIKE NIGERIA
Everywhere else on the planet, population follows a natural pattern:
Coastal areas – High population
Rainforest belts – Dense settlement
Savannah – Moderate population
Desert fringes – Sparse population
This is scientifically consistent from Asia to the Americas to Europe.
But Nigeria is the lone global anomaly, a cartographic absurdity, a geographical contradiction, a statistical insult to common sense.
According to our “official” census figures:
The further you move away from the Atlantic Ocean,
The closer you get to the Sahel and desert,
The higher the population supposedly becomes.
Meaning:
Water = fewer people.
Desert = millions.
This is a demographic miracle that only exists on paper, and only in Nigeria.
THE 1952–53 COLONIAL CENSUS: THE ORIGINAL FRAUD
Historians know, Britain wrote it in their own archives, that the 1952–53 census was never accurate. In fact, several British administrators admitted in memos that:
“The figures from the Northern Provinces are at best estimates, at worst fabrications”.
Yet these fabrications were accepted and imposed as gospel truth because they produced the intended effect:
A Northern majority that guaranteed post-independence political dominance.
And because population translated directly into parliamentary seats, Nigeria was born into a structure designed to keep one region permanently ahead of the other.
A rigged census became the foundation of a rigged federation.
THE POST-INDEPENDENCE CENSUS WARS: EVERY TRUTH CANCELLED, EVERY LIE PROTECTED
After independence, Nigerians attempted to correct the distortions:
1962 Census
Thrown out, because it reduced the North’s fictitious advantage.
1963 Census
Re-rigged to “restore” the preferred numbers.
1973 Census
So controversial that the figures were never officially released.
1991 & 2006 Censuses
Still chained to colonial arithmetic; still preserving the old imbalance.
To this day, not one Nigerian census has been accepted nationally as credible.
THE GEOGRAPHY OF ABSURDITY
A region with:
Lower rainfall
Lower agricultural capacity
Higher infant mortality
Less industrialisation
Less urbanisation until the 1980s
Higher poverty indexes
Vast land but low carrying capacity
…is somehow “more populated” than regions with:
Ports
Urban clusters
Industry
Trade routes
Universities
Rainforest fertility
Coastline advantage
This is not demography.
It is political mathematics.
THE CONSEQUENCES OF THIS FRAUD
Nigeria’s census lie is not harmless. It has shaped:
- Political Power Distribution
Seats in the National Assembly remain skewed.
- Revenue Allocation
States with inflated figures receive more money.
- Federal Appointments & Military Structure
Population dominance = institutional dominance.
- Electoral Weight
Voter figures in some regions defy logic, turnout rates defy physics.
- Perpetual Instability
A nation cannot be stable when built on numerical fiction.
THE TRUTH NOBODY WANTS TO SAY PUBLICLY
Nigeria is the only place on earth where the desert is more populated than the coast.
The only place where arid zones supposedly outperform coastal megacities.
The only place where geography becomes irrelevant and politics becomes mathematics.
The only place where census figures exist to protect power, not reflect reality.
If God was doing a social experiment to see how far a nation can twist natural order without breaking, he chose Nigeria as the laboratory.
Nigeria is not a demographic mystery.
It is a demographic scam.
And until this is corrected, every conversation about fairness, equity, federalism, restructuring, elections or nationhood is built on sand.
By Hon Chima Nnadi-Oforgu
Duruebube Ihiagwa ófó asato
OBLONG MEDIA UNLIMITED 
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