Jackson Advocate

Nigeria Census Taking Underway May Reveal Population 40-Million

In a still unfinished one-story building on the outskirts of Lagos, 1,000 clerks, typists, and statistical experts are beginning to piece together the information gathered from Nigeria's first comprehensive census. By August it is hoped to publish accurate figures of the total number of people living in Africa's most heavily populated country. But it will take two years for all the data to be processed and collated.

A "rough-and-ready census in 1951 showed Nigeria's population to be about 31,000,000 but the increase has been so rapid in recent years that it will surprise no one if it now proves to be more than 40,000,000.

The census, which began on May 13, was due to last two weeks. But the count was still incomplete more than a month later in the large towns of western Nigeria, according to the chief census officer, Mefferson Warren.

The recent political crisis there and the transition from the British system of district officers to the new style of local government had made the enumerators' task more difficult, he explained.

In general, he said, the census had been satisfactory. It had been thought that people might try to avoid being counted and giving details of their age, religion, tribe, and educational status in case such information might be

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used to increase their taxes. In some instances, just the opposite took place. Many people had tried to register themselves and their relatives twice.

Little Trouble
There had been little trouble, Mr. Warren said. In the east, two or three enumerators were beaten up, but teams who set off by canoe into the swamplands of the River Niger delta or trekked across the high plateau of the North had returned unscathed-with census forms completed.

In one district of the proposed midwestern state, to which the Yoruba Tribe objects, the local council had passed a resolution that everyone in the village must declare that he was a member of the Yoruba Tribe, but the attempt at falsification was thwarted before the enumerators arrived.

Each of the 45,000 enumerators was given an area estimated to contain not more than 1,200 people in which to conduct the house-to-house check.

At least one suburb of Lagos, however, was so densely populated that it had to be further divided into three.

The census is costing more than $4,000,000. But federal government officials say that it will be money well spent if reliable figures make it possible to prepare plans for the future within the framework of Nigeria's six-year development plan.