Migration and demographic dynamics in Africa
Dr. Olukayode Oyeleye, Business a.m.’s Editorial Advisor, who graduated in veterinary medicine from the University of Ibadan, Nigeria, before establishing himself in science and public policy journalism and communication, also has a postgraduate diploma in public administration, and is a former special adviser to two former Nigerian ministers of agriculture. He specialises in development and policy issues in the areas of food, trade and competition, security, governance, environment and innovation, politics and emerging economies.
Prior to 2011, there was only one Sudan. But the decades-long internal crises culminated in the creation of a new nation out of the old. The Republic of South Sudan was born in July 2011. But since it gained its independence from Sudan, the new country with a population currently estimated at 12 million people – which got off to a worrisome start – has not done any population census, presumably because of the war that broke out early and lingered for many years until recently. For the old Sudan, the last official census recorded populations of over 30 million citizens in the Eastern, Western and Northern Sudan in 2008. Since Eritrea gained independence from Ethiopia in 1991, it has never conducted an official government census. Yet it devised its own ways of estimating its population with surprising variance that reveals a wide range of between 3.6 million and 6.7 million people, a wonder in statistical analysis for such a small population! The status of Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR or RASD), also known as Western Sahara, remains under dispute as a partially recognised state to which Morocco has claimed authority since 1975. Although the United Nations (UN) does not recognise Moroccan control over it, and 41 UN member states recognise its existence, it is often referred to as a “non-self-governing territory.” The current population figure of 612,000 is an estimate based on UN projection growth since 1975, the date when the last census took place in that territory.
Many countries of Africa depend only on estimates based on extrapolations of figures generated from census done over the past decade or more. These are generally error-prone and often misleading. For instance, since independence, Morocco has conducted five censuses, with the one of 2004 being the latest after those of 1960, 1971, 1982 and 1994. The most recent census in Ethiopia was done in 2007. The last national census in DR Congo was in 1984. The last census in South Africa, and the third census since the post-democratic elections in 1994, was done in 2011. Senegal’s last census was conducted in 2013. Zambia’s last population census was carried out in 2010 and Central African Republic (CAR) last conducted its census in 2003. Libya has so far carried out eight population censuses since 1931, with the most recent one in 2006. Côte d’Ivoire, a country in and out of war and political crisis between 2002 and 2011, had its last census in 1998. In Nigeria, Africa’s acclaimed most populous country, the last census was held in August 2006. Since its independence, Ghana has conducted five population censuses in 1960, 1970, 1984, 2000 and 2010. The 2000 and 2010 exercises were both a population census and a housing census. Its 2021 PHC was the third Population and Housing Census in its national history. In Egypt, the most recent census was done in 2017. Burkina Faso last conducted a census in 2018. Kenya was one of the countries that conducted its census most recently, shortly before the outbreak of COVID-19. Its census was done in August 2019.
Interestingly, many countries considered as big, vibrant and growing economies in Africa operate on extrapolation of outdated population figures. Their social, economic and political managers and leaders must therefore be magicians of some sorts, based on the confidence with which they roll out data on vital socio-political and economic aspects of lives. This situation provides a fertile ground for statistical manipulations manifesting in the forms of official corruption in the public service and election cover-ups in the course of choosing political leaders. Those benefiting from these aberrant practices are most unlikely to be favourably disposed to changing them or adopting transparent best practices and standard operating procedures. These find expression in pension fund frauds, salaries for ghost workers, election rigging, extension of political term limits, development crises, forced migrations, internecine hostilities and arrested development. Despite early forebodings, most of the problems have been allowed to grow in magnitude and to fester, particularly by political actors either as a result of deliberate abandonment or lack of proper understanding of the implications and ramifications of their consequences.
Certain practices either directly or indirectly contribute to the widespread errors in population figures. Cultural and religious sentiments hinder census coverage in some countries or certain regions of some countries. Some houses are not accessible to enumerators who sometimes have to resort to estimations. Figures of births and deaths are not yet adequately recorded in many parts of the continent. Wars, killings, displacement and forced migrations have tended to distort population figures in many countries. Population of the elderly and the youths have become more of a matter of conjecture. Claims about the 1.3 billion population of the entire continent may therefore be one of underestimation or of exaggeration in reality. The youth bulge, though evident circumstantially and by anecdotal evidence, may not reflect the exact percentage of the population. The same goes for the old people’s statistics, especially as most people are in the informal economy where their data are hardly captured officially. Even the formal sector has mostly captured public rather than private endeavours. Tax, transportation, healthcare and educational authorities thus end up recording population data of some fractions of the total population. Unemployment rates and GDP figures often quoted are mostly suspect as the underlying assumptions are error prone to very large extents.
It can be affirmed with some degree of certitude that political actors and public service employees are largely responsible for the unreliable multi-sectoral and multi-level population statistics in various parts of Africa. Politicians who tend to concentrate the presence of government in the political capitals at the national and sub-national levels also tend to ignore the rural countryside. These rural countryside, which appear inconsequential, are missed out in day-to-day schemes of work in official circles. But to put a lie to their omissions, the same rural countryside is visited by politicians while campaigning for elections. Many such areas lack good roads, thus cutting them off from the mainstream economy. Education and healthcare services are far from them. But their votes are considered vital to the electoral successes of the politicians, a proof that they deliberately omit such places in the governance scheme. It is easy, therefore, to infer that these omissions are deliberate and meant to achieve specific purposes. The contributions of such a population to the overall national population, therefore, turns out insignificant. A major underlying factor boosting unregulated rural-urban migrations and the growing sizes of Africa’s urban areas is the absence of government in the rural areas. Roads, health services and security are foremost among the essential services absent in most rural areas. The recent upsurge in rural insecurity alone has displaced many people internally to urban fringes and increased the sizes of existing slums in some cases or created new slums in many others. These have put public infrastructure under severe stress to the extent that city sprawling has increased more than ever before, exposing urban dwellers to crises of water shortage, overcrowded neighbourhoods, pollution by open spillage of sewers, among others.
Little wonder, therefore, that many African countries became overrun by religious militants, insurgents and and terrorists who took advantage of lapses in demographics to invade African countries, successfully launching cross-border assaults without let or hindrance. It is also of particular interest that cross-border migrations continue apace, with governments unable to put them under control. immigration services of countries have largely become helpless as some countries are invaded by foreigners. A case in point in recent times is Nigeria, which has been infiltrated by a nomadic tribe since 2014, first covertly but more overtly recently and those infiltrators have become a nuisance and a terror to the citizens. Climate disasters, wars and other forms of hostilities have driven thousands of Africans away from their homelands in search of refuge, safety and environmentally friendly places. A good number of Ethiopian refugees now live in the neighbouring Sudan in the aftermath of the protracted Tigray war launched in November 2022, just a month less than two years ago. The implications are many and varied, from lack of services to lack of safety, hunger, chronic poverty and even crime. For Africa to truly make progress, issues of demographics must be at the core of countries’ policies and programmes. A completely new approach to standards, transparency and timelines will have to be instituted and driven from within, rather than from outside. Without these in place, African countries will continue to depend on the World Bank, United Nations and other international organisations for vital statistics. That is not good enough. Things must change for the better. African countries must invest in generation of vital statistics in the long-term interest of the respective countries and the entire continent.
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