U.S. heightens debate on Nigeria's Christians, Muslims population
From Laolu Akande (New York)

AS far as the United States is concerned, there is no certainty on Nigeria's statistics and percentages of Christians and Muslims in the country's population.


http://odili.net/news/source/2009/nov/1/18.html


This has added to the international controversy on Nigeria's population and religious demography.

An annual US State Department report on International Religious Freedom for 2009 released during the week in Washington DC indicated that with a population of 149 million, there is no agreement on the number of total Christians or Muslims in Nigeria.

Detailing its findings on Nigeria, the US government said: "While some groups estimate the population to be 50 percent Muslim, 40 percent Christian, and 10 percent practitioners of indigenous religious beliefs, it is generally assumed that the proportions of citizens, who practice Islam and citizens who practice Christianity are roughly equal, "

The US report is coming against the background of another US group, the Pew Foundation, which last month implied that there are more Muslims in Nigeria.

According to the October 2009 research report by Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, an influential Washington DC based research group, "Nigeria has the largest Muslim population in sub-Saharan Africa, with about 78 million Muslims (about 50 percent of Nigeria's total population).

It is the same 50 percent that the US government claims as Muslims in its report but with a strong caveat that both Christians and Muslims have about the same proportion of the Nigerian population.

The Pew report has caused back and forth controversy between the Pew Forum and the Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, whose President Pastor Ayo Oritsejafor rejected the Pew figures.

Pew later explained that it based its Nigeria's figures on "the 2003 Nigerian Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS), which is the third such survey conducted in Nigeria as part of this worldwide series of surveys."

Pew added that, "the 2003 NDHS was designed to provide a nationally representative estimate of population and health indicators for women ages 15 to 49 and men ages 15 to 59, based on a sample of 7,864 households interviewed throughout all 36 States and the Federal Capital Territory."

The US group added that it also "conducted secondary analysis of the NDHS data, but it was not involved in the administration or organisation of the survey."

But the PFN President, in his reaction to the Pew Forum estimates, said the Pew figures were inaccurate and unacceptable.

Pastor Oritsejafor recalled that the 2006 census purposely avoided religious affiliation information because former President Olusegun Obasanjo, who had been close to the PFN, prevailed on the Christian community in Nigeria to agree to the request of Muslims then "to exclude the religious clause from the census data."

Said the PFN leader: "So, if the Nigerian government cannot say specifically the number of Christians and Muslims in the country, how then did an American forum come up with such unsubstantiated figures of a particular religious group in the country?"

Apart from the lack of clarity on the religious demographics in Nigeria, the US report, however, submitted that "a substantial number" of Nigerians "practice indigenous religious beliefs alongside Christianity or Islam."

On its findings on the Christian population, the US government report disclosed that it includes Roman Catholics, Anglicans, Baptists, Methodists, Presbyterians, and a growing number of evangelical and Pentecostal Christians and members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons)."

It submitted that, "the North, dominated by the Hausa-Fulani and Kanuri ethnic groups, is predominantly Muslim, but added that, "significant Christian communities have resided and intermarried with Muslims in the North for more than 50 years, however."

While giving the Nigerian government a pass mark in the area of religious freedom, the US said the government "generally respected religious freedom in practice."

In fact, for the time covered by the 2009 report, it was noted that "there were no reports of religious prisoners or detainees in the country."

But the rod was not spared against politicians. According to the report, "local political actors stoked sectarian violence with impunity."

For instance, the report said that, "local govt officials used zoning regulations to stop or slow the establishment of new churches and in some cases reportedly demolished churches that had existed for up to a decade."

On the other hand, the report also said that Muslims "in the predominantly Christian southern part of Kaduna State alleged that local government officials prevented the construction of mosques and Islamic schools."

Politicians were also criticised by the report for causing religious and ethnic hostilities in the country, as "religious differences often paralleled and exacerbated differences between ethnic groups."

Said the report: "Local politicians and others continued to occasionally use religion as a catalyst for fomenting hostility between groups."