The other day, Rabiu Kwankwaso, the Governor of Kano State, stirred the hornet’s nest when he chose to deride the legitimate demand of the South East for an additional state. The Governor spewed venom and freely assaulted the sensibilities of the South East by pretending to be taking on Ike EKweremadu, the Deputy Senate President, when he was actually talking down on an entire race.
In Kwankwaso’s reckoning, Kano, not Enugu or any part of the South East, deserves an additional state. By so doing, the Governor touched raw nerves on an issue that is truly vexed. From the way he sounded, the Governor must be a practised hand in scorched-earth policy. As one, he is employing a psychological warfare which will ensure that useful assets that can add value to his enemy territory is reduced or radically minimized.
That is why he is irked by the possibility of an additional state being created for the South East zone to bring it at par with the number of states in the other five geo-political zones. Kwankaso is enraged that an Ike Ekweremadu, whose Enugu state is far less populated than Kwankwaso’s Kano, is scheming to have a state created from his Enugu State. Indeed, Kwankwaso said that the South East does not deserve an additional state because its population does not measure up to that of the North West. He flaunted the 2006 Census figures to buttress his point. As bitter as he was with the idea of a new state for the South East, Kwankwaso said: “they (the South East) should not have five in my opinion. What is the population of the South East?”
From the way he sounded in this matter, Kwankwaso must be one of those Nigerians who see the South East as a conquered territory where the scorched-earth policy must be applied to the fullest. That is why he is bitter that the people of the zone have the effrontery to ask to be equalized with the other zones of the geo-polity. That is where the problem lies. While well-meaning Nigerians are working towards an equitable and just society where no one will be weighed down by the feeling of loss and lack, the likes of Kwankwaso are fanning the embers of acrimony and hate.
That is why he reduced the job of the National Assembly Committee on Review of the Constitution to the Deputy Senate President simply because he is a South Easterner. But Ekweremadu, to the best of my knowledge, is not asking that a new state be created from Enugu State. He, together with other South-Easterners, is talking about an additional state for the zone that has not enjoyed parity in state creation. The demand from the South East meets all indices of equity, fairness and justice.
And Nigerians of goodwill have said time and time again that the country will continue to totter on the brinks of instability and stagnation if these indices remain lacking in our national values and ethos. Kwankwaso’s sardonic delight in the population of his Kano State, and his over-reliance on it to disparage the demand of the South East merely exposed the implausibility of his argument. If Kwankwaso were discerning enough, he would have known that the census figures he is relying upon make sense only to a few Nigerians. He tells us that Kano has a population of 9.3 million. But we know that the figure is contrived. No serious-minded Nigerian believes in it.
When the 2006 census figures were released, Kano was fraudulently made to appear more populated than Lagos. But Nigerians squirmed at the lie. They know it was made up to satisfy the entrenched order. Is this what Kwankwaso is gloating over? Even if Lagos and Kano have almost equal number of human beings living in their territories, how come that Lagos has 20 Local Government Areas while Kano has 44? Is this huge discrepancy not questionable? Kwankwaso needs to be reminded also that the 2006 census exercise was not programmed to serve the purpose and interest of the generality of Nigerians. It is to be recalled that the National Population Commission (NPC) led by Sumaila Makama at the time refused to include ethnicity and religion as indices in the census exercise. Then, Nigerians of goodwill shouted their voice hoarse.
They told NPC that there was need to know how many Igbos, Hausas, Yoruba, Fulani, Efik, Ibibio, Ijaw etc that live in this country. The people also underlined the need to know the number of Nigerians that are Christians as well as the population of Muslims. Regardless of the emphasis on these two indices, NPC refused to include them. In the absence of ethnicity as a population index, for instance, how does Kwankwaso measure the true population of his state?
The Governor need not be reminded that the population of Igbos in his Kano State almost equals that of the indigenous population. Therefore, if you subtract the Igbo population in Kano from the figure Kwankwaso is flaunting, he will be left with a figure that will negate all his claims about a populous Kano. The implication of this is that the South East where these Igbos come from is not a lean zone after all. If those Igbos who have given Kwankwaso the huge figure he is flaunting return to their homeland as they must, what will Kwankwaso rely upon to make all his unfounded claims?
No matter the level of bad blood spilled by the Kwankwasos of this world, the fact remains that an additional state for the South East is a legitimate quest. If Nigerians do not want more states as some of them have argued, we can accept it in so far as it applies to one and all. But the best way to accommodate such argument is for other sections of Nigeria to drop their demands for additional states and allow that of the South East to sail through. When that is done, Nigeria can put paid to further and future demands for state creation.
At moment, what some other zones of the country are doing is to act as a spoilsport to the legitimate quest by the South East for parity. Now that Kwankwaso has made it clear to Nigerians that the absence of ethnicity and religion as indices in population census can be put to fraudulent use, Nigerians, especially those who stand to lose when such indices are not there, should insist, next time around, that they be included. In any case, should any Nigerian who is sincere about knowing the ethnic and religious composition of this country have anything to fear when such figures are made public?
Indeed, NPC has demonstrated that it had a dubious intent when it rejected these vital indices. For the Igbo who have a high migrant population outside their homeland, the derisive comments by Kwankwaso about South East population should serve as a clarion call.
A people whose best operate outside their shores should have a rethink about what they value and cherish. That is part of the burden the Kano Governor has placed on South Easterners.
The Sun
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