The Number Game

A few metres away from my parents' home is a 'house' built from zinc and polythene sheets with a small opening where you can purchase Indomie quickly if you suddenly run out of stock at home. This structure houses a Northern family and each time I walk over there, I am always enthralled by the striking resemblance between kids with very marginal difference in height. Till date, I am still not entirely sure how many children there are in this makeshift 'house' but as at my last count, there were probably about a dozen. Till date also, I have only seen one woman in this place and one look at her would immediately tell you without any doubt that she sired all those kids.
Mallam Sanusi Lamido Sanusi is now a household name in Nigeria. He is the charismatic and strikingly intelligent Emir of Kano and former Central Bank Governor. Having attended King's College Lagos and Ahmadu Bello University Zaria, 'SLS' has certainly earned his place as a guru on the subject of Nigerian Economics. In this very lovely picture (Photo Credit: Maigaskiya Photography) of his nuclear family, he is proudly surrounded by his wives and a dozen kids. As learned, cultured and travelled as the man is, he has twelve children! It's not about monarchy, be reminded that he only became Emir less than a year ago. 

The two families depicted above are two extremes that define Nigeria's demographics today. An uneducated petty trader living abjectly and a well-read financial maverick with a sizable fortune to his lineage. They may differ widely in net worth but their 'quivers' are not to be messed with. While Sanusi's three wives birthed a dozen kids as a team, my 'mallam' neighbour's one wife had singularly matched this output even with the highly improbable assumption that this is his only wife.

'Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Blessed is the man that hath his quiver full of them. They will not be put to shame when they contend with their enemies in court' - Psalm 127 vs 3 - 5.

In the just concluded elections in Nigeria, many apologists of the outgoing government of Goodluck Jonathan adduce massive rigging in Northern Nigeria for their principal's poor showing at the polls. We watched the announcement of election results on live television as Rivers State delivered over 1.4 million votes for their 'son'. Shortly after that, Kano State posted 1.9 million votes and tongues wagged. I wondered to myself how this was even contestable given the sheer size of Kano and indeed the Northern States. We forget very quickly that even in 2011 when President Jonathan -with all the goodwill at the time- ran against Muhammadu Buhari, the latter still amassed a whooping 12 million votes across the land.

The truth is that we'll never be able to compete with the Northerners in this number game. Look at the two representative Northern families described above, in a few years time, these kids will attain the age of voting. Between two households, we have conservatively identified twenty four potential Northern votes. In the South-West, the trend is the inverse! Families are shrinking very quickly in size in these parts due to female empowerment, better girl child education, reproductive heath changes vis-a-vis family planning, harsher socioeconomic conditions and just simple social trends. It is no longer 'fashionable' to have a full quiver in these parts. You'd be looked upon as an aberrant of or deviant from the norm so we shut shop after two or three offspring. So averagely, two South-West households in a few years will present six voters against the modest twenty four already on ground in Northern Nigeria.

Except we decide to turn logic and mathematics on their heads like is routinely done in Nigerian Governor's Forum, twenty four will always be four times more than six. Now, picture this trend across a million households on either side of the divide! Yes, we simply can't compete.

I'm still not sure if this was a calculated design by way of foresight on the part of the forefathers of the North or if it is simple coincidence. Did they intentionally deny their people education and exposure to ensure they maximised the potentials of their gonads? Did they envision that one day, the numbers would count? You can't deny the almost palpable link between female empowerment/education and small family sizes. An educated and gainfully employed lady is more likely to have fewer kids within a relatively shorter obstetric career compared to her Northern illiterate counterpart, who stays home all day making Tuwo and starts child-bearing once her first period starts at thirteen and continues till menopause knocks. While this may not be ideal medically, it is what happens in reality and we must come to terms with it.

It doesn't help that the predominant religion in Northern Nigeria permits polygamy so a man can marry in multiples even with the finest education and exposure as Sanusi Lamido shows. It also doesn't help that the social and educational exposure in these parts seemingly confers higher costs of wooing. It is very unlikely, though not impossible, that a 'Mallam' will need to buy Peruvian hair and Christian Louboutins for a prospective spouse. She would probably be clad in hijab all day anyway or at least free flowing apparel that hides as much flesh as practicable so of what use is it to adorn all these luxurious elements. They simply cover the basics and old wives wholeheartedly welcome newer ones. A dandy Disney tale if you ask me.

You see, we cannot eat our cakes and have them. We will also lie on our beds however we have made them. There is a indeed a price for everything under the sun. We are more educated, we are more empowered financially and so on but our numbers will continue to dwindle and we will find that one day, elections, being entirely games of numbers, will be won even before the competition starts. It is just common sense! How do you frown at Kano that has over 4 million registered voters posting 1.9 million votes but you can rationalise Rivers State with just over 2 million registered voters posting 1.4 million? Does this agree with any remote form of logic?

Unfortunately, we can't 'unlearn' what we know now in the South-West. We will keep placing a premium on education to the highest levels for our children, male and female alike. The new Western movement that advocates that a woman must not be defined solely by her ability to bear children is also gradually taking firm roots. In the coming years, more educated women will decide to opt out of being yoked in marriages that may slow them down in maximising their intrinsic capabilities. Understandably, the literacy rate in the North is still years behind so the women there have not entirely latched on to the Chimamanda Adichie train of 'I am more than an uterus', so they are comfortable just bearing today's children and tomorrow's voters. How do we find a balance?

Please do not misunderstand me. This isn't misogyny. It is the reality we face and must face. I am an advocate of girl-child education also, even to the highest levels of educational achievement. We must however, take a step back and assess our position as a voting bloc since we cannot exactly opt out of this game of numbers called elections. If the trend continues, in a few decades, we will have an uneducated majority and a thin enlightened minority. When each class presents Presidential candidates, who do you think will win?

Dame Patience Jonathan made this assertion at one of the campaigns for her husband without fully understanding the gravity of what she posited. She said Southerners and her husband were not like the 'almajiris who dey born pikin wey dem no fit count'. Aha! You see now that some jokes do write themselves. The almajiris may not have been able to count but INEC could and did count these voters. The rest as they say is history. May 29 beckons.

As long as Northern Nigeria remains part of Nigeria, we won't match the numbers. This is probably why zoning as mentally-bankrupt as it is as a method, may be our only lifeline for competition. To persuade the North against fielding candidates based on some predetermined 'roster' so they can back other ethnicities till we are able to get education to every nook and cranny of Nigeria. This will take decades. Another alternative would have been for all the other geopolitical regions to form strategic alliances that can match these numbers. Unfortunately, ethnicity and religion will not allow us see beyond our noses so this remains unachievable. The distrust from 1970 still burns like flared gas in the Niger Delta creeks. 

The final option is to accept our fate. Maybe that's how providence designed it. After all, the Bible was clear in its advice to us about quivers. Again, sit back and think about it for a second before you label me a chauvinist. 

The numbers simply do not add up.... 

Think about it.