Can Nigerians Count?

Seriously can we count? can we count without delving into tribalistic issues? Are 3 yoruba men harder to count than 3 Hausa men? From all indications Nigerians can not count. We all ought to cover our faces in shame. Do the babariga and buba wearing policy makers realize that a national census goes way beyond 'a funky quota system' , there are policy issues in healthcare and educations that are more important than how much money a state governors gets to play with. Most of the funds disbursed by the FG end up in foreign accounts anyway.
For a few days now we have been greeted with news headlines of meetings, reactions and counter reactions, on the results of the National Census, Oh Kano is more populous than Lagos, oh this can not be so, oh the Census was rigged. Only in Nigeria, where did the Lagos State government get the 15 million figure from. If they had it all figured out what was the point of the excercise in the first place. Since when did we need a seal of approval from the citizenry for the result of a head count. Public officials need to be held more accountable in Nigeria, some of their utterances are highly divisive. Lets face it, this bruhaha is not about the election figures, but another indicator of how divided we are as a country.

The Lagos State Government said it would take its time to study the released document before making any pronouncement on the figuresPrior to the conduct of the census in 2006, the state government had stressed that the population of the state could not be less than 15 million people.The state Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Mr. Dele Alake, told newsmen before the conduct of the census that any figure less than 15 million population would not be acceptable to the generality of Lagos residents.

Events like these make me wonder if Nigeria as we know it today, is better of as separate innibitsy countries. Okay I'd settle for a federal system of government.

My spell checker isn't working please bare with me.