30 January 2007 – The Nigerian government recently made the results of the official population and housing census of 2006 public. These results show that Nigeria was inhabited by 140 million people in 2006.

These findings have led to heated discussions in Nigeria, mainly between (Islamic) northern and (Christian) southern states. The numbers show that the north is still bigger than the south, something that is strongly questioned by the southern states.

The questions that were the basis for our work were “How credible is this census?” And “Will this census lead to reliable, accurate and ultimately acceptable results?” Our answer then was “We don’t know, but they could lead to such results.”

Our conclusions after the counts were finished were, that given the complexity of this enormous operation, a good job had been done and that the basic requirements for a reliable and accurate count had been met. At that point in time however we could not say anything about the results. It would take months before these would be available. Months of gathering, cleaning, processing and analysing of data. Months in which much reliability and accurateness could be gained, or lost.

Whoever has a look at our report will see that we have concluded that the Nigerian government and the international community together have treated this census very seriously and that they have done their best to ensure that the results would be reliable. Whether this will lead to political acceptance or the results remains is the question. If not, a lot of money and effort has been wasted. If the answer is yes, then we have a new basis for the allocation of government budgets to further the socioeconomic development of the country.