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ID card as nemesis By
I have listened with utter amazement and, sometimes, bemusement to the current debate on whether or not National Identity Cards should be used for future elections in this country. I dare say it is only in good old Nigeria that any opposition could emerge from any quarters when a scheme is devised to sanitise a putrid system such as ours! More alarming is the brazenness with which such opposition is mounted, regardless of the assault on the sensibilities of decent citizens. One may put it down to the moral collapse of the Nigerian polity engendered by the military brigandage unleashed on our collective psyche in the past 15 years. It led the Nigerian society to such depths of moral decay that an otherwise seemingly normal adult can rise and declare, even if not in exactly the same words: "I know what I am advocating is fraudulent and reprehensible but that is what I want all the same. If anything to the contrary is done I shall bring down the heavens on your heads...!" It is the political equivalent of the armed robber who invites himself to your doorstep and declares "Open up or youre dead if I force myself inside!" To him, the wrong or right embedded the action therein is immaterial. We have always known it and they have always known it. Certainly, I have always known it ñ that the fabled population superiority of the North has always been just that ñ a fable! Check out your elementary geography and you will discover that contrary to what obtains in the whole of West Africa, Nigeria is the only country where according to "census figures" the population decreases steadily as you go from the arid North to the savannah Middle Belt and finally to the tropical rain forest of the coastal areas. It is only in Nigeria that normal, natural demographic distribution is turned on its head (like much else in this blighted land!), and it is accepted as a basis for planning and for sharing the all-important national cake. That is the fraudulent reason why today Kano State still has at least 35 local government areas even after Jigawa State had been carved out of it, whereas Abia State, with a population at least double that of Kano, has only 17 local government councils. That is also why at every state creation exercise a deliberate effort has been made to ensure that the sparsely populated North always has a higher number of states than densely populated South. Why should those who have been benefiting from this fraud not threaten hell and brimstone if any scheme that would expose the lie is proposed? For if every citizen is now made to present an identity before voting, would it not reveal that ghosts have been voting and receiving citizenship entitlement all these years? It was Pini Jason, one of my favourite columnists of yore, who once revealed the proof of the great population deception that has been with us since independence. He argued that with the North's virtual monopoly on power (for more than 30 years) and with the winner-takes-all syndrome that underlines all our political endeavours in Nigeria the North has tried every trick in the book to increase northern school enrolment figures to no avail. These tricks have ranged from nomadic education to the payment of hefty scholarships, to the lowering of admission cut-off points (for Northerners) to sub-zero temperatures just to fill their quota. Still the pupils and students fail to come. Why? The reason has nothing to do with religion as some people would have us believe. After all, the literacy rates of Turks and Indonesians (both countries are more than 90 per cent Moslem)... are not lower than those of Christian Nigerians! The reason is simply that those pupils do not exist. It has been copiously documented by the UN that there is a direct correlation between school enrolment and a society's population. This writer has traveled extensively in the North and has seen nothing to justify the demographic fraud foisted upon us these many years. Travel with me from Gusau to Sokoto or if you prefer, from Bauchi to Maiduguri. How many settlements do you pass through? Now go down South and travel from Benin to Port Harcourt via Onitsha and Owerri or, alternatively, take off from Lagos and head for Ife. See any difference? This writer believes strongly that this is the time to call the bluff of the North. Every fair-minded Nigerian should insist on the use of National ID cards for all future elections and census if ever the ID Card scheme becomes a reality. It is a shame that INEC is so lily-livered that immediately the gerontocrats who have perpetrated this population lie on us coughed their opposition they (INEC) hastily caught cold and backtracked with their tails between their legs. I think INEC should be called to order if they want to be taken seriously. I fully endorse the stand of the Yorubas on this issue, as recently expounded by Chief Adesanya at the recent Yoruba Congress. It is also time Ohaneze, (for what is worth!) took a definite stand on the matter. Above all, it is suggested that at the next conference of Southern Governors (thank God at last!) a clear statement is made in support of the use of ID cards for voting. Let us now begin to build a society based on Truth, Justice and Equity. Let this ID card Scheme become a veritable nemesis to the electoral and census frauds that have taken root in this benighted land.
Mr. Nwankwo, wrote in from Awka
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