The President of the Middle Belt Forum, Bitrus Pogu, has questioned commonly held assumptions about Nigeria’s religious demographics, arguing that population figures are often based on what he described as “false demographics.”
Pogu made the remarks in a video posted by Symfoni, where he discussed the controversy surrounding the inclusion of religious data in Nigeria’s national census.
According to him, efforts to include a religious index in past census exercises were rejected, prompting some groups to explore alternative methods of estimating religious population figures. He claimed that church demographic data was used in one instance to estimate the number of Christians in northern Nigeria.
In his words, “That same year when it was rejected, they said, ‘Why don’t we use church demographics to at least have an idea of how many Christians there are at least in the north? Do you know what they got? 46.3 million. If in the north alone, there are 46.3 million Christians, do you think there are more Muslims than Christians in Nigeria? Just use your brain. So the issue is we’re living in false demographics and using false demographics to determine population in Nigeria.”
Pogu argued that the absence of officially published religious data in census results has contributed to speculation and disagreement over the actual distribution of religious groups in the country. Nigeria’s national census, conducted by the National Population Commission, does not typically publish religious affiliation figures, a policy that has long been defended as necessary to avoid exacerbating sectarian tensions.
