A foremost self-determination organisation, the Yoruba Global Alliance (YGA), has condemned the planned national population exercise, saying it is another April Fool joke that should die.
It alleged that the census is a mischief towards a predetermined end of imposing false demographics on Nigeria to the advantage of the Fulani hegemony, adding that the people cannot be deceived any longer.
The group said this in a press statement e-signed by Dr Amos Arogundade Akingba and High Chief Tola Adeniyi, its President and Chairman of Council, respectively.
The group, in the statement tagged “Census, Which Census”, said this in reaction to what it described as “a story maki the rounds that the Caliphate-controlled Disguised Military Dictatorship (otherwise known as DMD) in Abuja is planning a population census in April 2023.
It further stated that the story, which it said should simply die as an April Fool joke, is said to be approved by the Council of State.
YGA, a foremost self-determination organisation with a global spread, unequivocally described the planned census exercise as an “invidious and obviously self-serving political miscalculation and mis-adventure.
“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-led 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 National 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 (IDPs) 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,” the statement read.
The prominent Yoruba group therefore called on well-meaning Nigerians, most especially respectable elders who knew Nigeria when it enjoyed a good measure of civilisation and civility, to urge President Muhammadu Buhari to halt the 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 organisations, Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), the entire media outlets, labour and trade organisations and the entire civil society platforms must rise up in unison to outrightly 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 dehumanised suffering women, hapless children and millions of unemployed youths breathe!”
