The Nigeria Federal government has unveiled intention to conduct a national census come 2022.
Nigeria’s population was estimated to be 140 million in 2006 by the last population and housing census, however some researchers say that the country’s true population is now unknown.
To estimate the country’s population, Nigerian authorities have relied on figures from Worldometer, a division of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs.
According to data given by the National Population Commission (NPC) in 2020, Nigeria’s population is currently expected to be 206 million people.
At the public presentation and breakdown of the 2022 Appropriation Bill in Abuja on October 9, Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning Zainab Ahmed stated that N178.09 billion had been allotted for the population census project.
President Muhammadu Buhari presented the 2022 Appropriation Bill to the National Assembly on October 7.
Ahmed further disclosed that Buhari would soon make a proclamation for the 2022 national population and housing census.
The national population census of 2006 was marred by controversy, with the results splitting the country into regions.
The provisional results of the 2006 census, which listed Kano in the north as Nigeria’s most populous state with a population of 9.4 million, were rejected by the southern section of the country.
With 9.0 million people, Lagos State is the second most populous state in the South, according to the census.
Overall, the North had a higher population than the South, according to the 2006 census.
According to census data, the northern states have a population of 75 million people, whereas the southern states have a population of 65 million people.
Ohanaeze Ndigbo, the apex socio-cultural body of the Igbos in the South-East, was among several southern groups to reject the results which they claimed was doctored and manipulated in favour of the North.
Ohanaeze Ndigbo equally alleged that the census results were rigged to portray the Igbos as a minority ethnic nationality.
The then governor of Lagos State Bola Tinubu, who was at the vanguard of the opposition to 2006 national census results, demanded a recount.
Tinubu insisted that Lagos State was more populous than Kano and declared that the result of the census was false.
According to Tinubu, a parallel census conducted by the Lagos State government in collaboration with the National Population Commission put the state’s population at more than 17.5 million people, much higher than the 9.0 million declared in the official result of the 2006 national population census.
But the North endorsed the results, which cemented the region’s reputation as the most populous part of the country.
Then Chairman of the National Population Commission Sa-mu’ila Danko Makama waved away the objections raised by the South, arguing that the commission would not just allocate figures.
In apparent reference to Lagos, Makama warned that any state that published parallel census figures had breached the Nigerian constitution as the NPC was the only body mandated by law to conduct the national population census.
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