Perfection of Rigging

wisdom is that this foundational conspiracy was expressed in the paternalistic desire of the British to bequeath the political domination of Nigeria to its favored protégé-the northern region; and consequently contrived this desired outcome through the manipulation of the Nigeria population census to favor the North over the South.

Though relatively rendered inconsequential (in the first republic) by regional autonomy, population figures were not without significant profit. And the controversy it would spawn started right from the first attempt to conduct census in post independent Nigeria… ‘ The first attempt, in mid-1962, was canceled after much controversy and allegations of over counting in many areas. A second attempt in 1963, which was officially accepted, also was encumbered with charges of inaccuracy and manipulation for regional and local political purposes. Indeed, the official 1963 figure of 55.6 million as total national population is inconsistent with the census of a decade earlier because it implies a virtually impossible annual growth rate of 5.8 percent’.

One of the abiding peculiarities of Nigeria is that the full knowledge of these fraudulent figures notwithstanding, it has remained the most acceptable and the standard for extrapolating the validity of subsequent enumeration of Nigerians. Such subsequent exercises have been little more than a variation and proportional upward review of the figures initially attributed to each region and states. These are the statistics upon which access and allocation of resources are predicated-so called distribution of the national cake. It is the basis for the creation of wards, local government councils, federal constituencies and states upon which revenue allocation and distribution is predicated. To the extent that this fraud is perpetrated across the length and breadth of Nigeria it has become the norm for which nobody or section is held culpable and accountable. And in consonance with the logic of power politics, it is the biggest player who dictates the pace and magnitude of the fraud and distortion.

In the current rundown to the 2019 general elections, the latest manifestation of this dilemma was brought to light in the report of Sunday Vanguard ‘This report will show why the new move (disguised as Voting points Settlements, VPS, is not different from the failed lopsided allocation, which saw the North handed over 21,000, while the South had less than 9,000 PUs. In addition, it will show the possible crookedness embedded in the hasty move less than 10months to next year’s general elections. Finally, just as it is with the presently unchangeable lopsided 774 LGAs, on which revenue is shared, the push to discriminately share out this so called VPS comes with the potential of rendering useless and discombobulate, the provisions of Section 133 (b) which deals with the issue of spread in voting to determine wide acceptability of a President. Conversely, the tokenism of attempting to solve a few instances of far-flung PUs and ease voter participation, which is the usual position of INEC, is negligible in the face of the potential universal consequence for the South specifically, and for the future of Nigeria’s integrity in general’.