By Charles Igbo
A former member of the House of Representatives, Prince Ned Nwoko, has blamed Religion for the population gap between the North and the Igbo.
While the Islamic religion encourages polygamy, the Christian religion abhors it, and preaches monogamy. The South-east is, predominantly, a Christian zone.
Nwoko, a polygamist, whose youngest wife is Nollywood Actress, Regina Daniels, spoke on the BBC Igbo service. He also said polygamy curbs prostitution.
Bemoaning the bad side of monogamy, and the population gap between the Igbo and the North, he said:
“You see the average Northerner marrying two, three, four women. They are helping the society because it is the economic downturn that has affected so many women who you see doing prostitution and all that. But the fallacy of it all is that Christianity does not allow that in the South and, yet, the average Southern man has 10 girlfriends.
“But even looking at that, looking at your population in Nigeria and what I will call economy of marriage,
as an Igbo man, with one wife, four children, a Northerner has four wives wives, with five children each. In the next 10 years, 20 years, imagine the population of the North.
“With you, an Igbo person, the population will be like one to five because of this disparity. The gap is getting bigger, and the Igbo will never catch up because of this self-imposed restriction.”
With Nigeria’s poor economy, population is still a big deal. It is the yardstick used for the distribution of many things, including the creation of Local Government Areas, States, and recruitment to Federal job.
For now, according to the last Census, the South-east has the least population in Nigeria.
This, however, could be attributable to two things.
One: Many South-easteners live outside their zones, and unlike the Northerners who usually go home to be counted during Census, the Igbo hardly do so. They are counted where they live.
Secondly, during the last Census, MASSOB ignorantly prevailed on a number of people in the South-east not to come out to be counted.
For the records, the South-east, also, has the least number of States – five – a situation that has, rightly, been described as gross injustice.
