2023 population census may lead to war — Yoruba Global Alliance •Warns FG to suspend exercise

A foremost self-determination organization, The Yoruba Global Alliance, has advised the federal government to put off plans geared towards conducting population census in the country next year, expressing fears that it could plunge Nigeria into full scale war.

According to the Yoruba Global Alliance, the exercise which has already received the nod of the Council of State, “is a mischief towards a predetermined end of imposing false demographics on Nigeria to the advantage of the Fulani hegemony.”

The group insisted that no proper census could take place in Nigeria by 2023 because currently “the country was at war with itself.”

In a statement signed by the President, Dr Amos Arogundade Akingba, and Chairman of Council, High Chief Tola Adeniyi, and made available to News Express, The Yoruba Global Alliance submitted that “There can only be one reason for this unreasonable scheming: come up with terribly skewed census figures and plunge the uneasy country to further confusion, infighting, insurrection and catastrophic implosion and ultimately full-blown Civil War.” The Statement was titled “Census, Which Census??”

While condemning unequivocally, the plan to conduct a population census in 2023, the group called on all stakeholders to prevail of the federal government to cancel the proposed 2023 population headcount, describing it as “invidious and obviously self-serving political miscalculation and mis-adventure.”

The statement partly reads: “It is inconceivable that any serious-minded government should ever consider human population enumeration amidst an atmosphere of unprecedented insecurity, mistrust, unbridled corruption, and pervasive economic woes. It would be like a similar exercise conducted in 1974 which the subsequent Murtala Muhammed Military junta immediately jettisoned on assumption of office in 1975.

“What on earth could be the rationale for seeking to do a national headcount at this point in time, especially amidst rumours and permutations that the Unitary government in Abuja may have other tricks up its sleeves regarding holding national elections slated for April next year?

“The programmed Census is a mischief towards a predetermined end of imposing false demographics on Nigeria to the advantage of the Fulani hegemony. Nigerians cannot be deceived any longer.

“Human population Census requires meticulous planning, including but not limited to cartographic capturing, enumeration of houses and other dwelling places, comprehensive physical counting of human heads all over the country and,  of course, a huge man-power outlay.

“In a situation where guardians and parents have stopped allowing their children and wards to proceed to mandatory Youths Service Corps outside their immediate environment, and hundreds of thousands have fled their homesteads because of pampered marauding human butchers euphemistically tagged bandits, where will the government import enumerators from?

“We should admit the obvious fact that Nigeria is at war with itself. Census exercises are never conducted in a war situation.

“More than four million Nigerians are scattered in Internally Displaced Persons camps all over the country most especially in the far Northern states of the country and Niger state. Who is going to count people who have been sentenced to humongous suffering by their own people in a country where suspicious terrorism holds sway?

There can only be one reason for this unreasonable scheming: come up with terribly skewed census figures and plunge the uneasy country to further confusion, infighting, insurrection and catastrophic implosion and ultimately full-blown Civil War.

“We call on well-meaning Nigerians, most especially respectable elders who knew Nigeria when it enjoyed a good measure of civilization and civility, to urge President Buhari to halt this unwarranted assault. We equally urge the National Assembly, the rubber stamp entity and submissive ‘wife’ of the Executive Council to deploy whatever balls they have to stop this open invitation to anarchy.

“They should remember that posterity will reward them for their complicity should they fail to do the proper thing which is to stop this charade.

“Student Organizations, Nigeria Bar Association, the entire Media Outlets, Labour and Trade Organizations and the entire Civil Society Platforms must rise up in unison to out-rightly condemn and reject this odious and obnoxious fraudulent scheming.

“Finally, we warn those who are the puppeteers, the faceless advisers and mis-advisers to keep off and stop leading the government to a certain ruinous end.

“Before the final breakup of the Lugard Contraption, which is certain to happen, and Indigenous nationalities go their separate ways as Sovereign nations, we urge this deadly Government to let our dehumanized suffering women,  hapless children and millions of unemployed youths breathe!”