How North Eastern figures went wrong

• Residents took and filled in questionnaires with inaccurate information, claims minister

Planning minister Wycliffe Oparanya on Wednesday tried to explain how the Sh8 billion census arrived at results which showed that the number of people in one province had increased by 140 per cent in a decade.

The census results for some districts in North Eastern Province have been cancelled and a fresh count ordered after the figures showed its population had risen almost three-fold, from 962,143 in 1999 to 2.3 million last year.

Mr Oparanya said the count was badly conducted after enumerators allowed residents to fill the questionnaires themselves.

The minister said respondents, especially the elderly, refused to answer census questions asked by young enumerators and filled the results on their own, thus compromising the accuracy of the results.

“Most of them refused to be asked questions by our enumerators, saying it was against their culture. They would instead grab the questionnaires and fill them themselves. This led to the inaccuracies,” Mr Oparanya told the Nation.

The population of North Eastern should be 1,394,367 as projected by census officials, said Dr Lawrence Ikamari, the Director of Population Studies at the University of Nairobi.

It is not clear why all the respondents who chose to fill the forms rather than answer questions consistently inflated the sizes of their households. The census questionnaire is a complex, technical document and enumerators have to be trained to fill it.

How elderly people in the depths of North Eastern, where more than 80 per cent of the people are illiterate, were able to understand the questionnaire was another mystery.

Census officials got alarmed when North Eastern residents demanded that a second batch of questionnaires be sent, saying the first one was not enough, the minister revealed.

“We had counted all the households in the province and on the basis of this, took an equal number of forms there. Suddenly, we were told that the forms were not enough so we airlifted more forms there. We started suspecting something was wrong when they asked for extra forms for the third time.”

Population experts are calling for a recount, saying the numbers don’t add up.

“The figures do not conform with the natural population trends. There is a need for the re-evaluation of the fertility and mortality rates as well as migration patterns,” said Dr Ikamari.

A re-evaluation will enable the government to get the true figures and therefore be able to allocate resources in a fair and equitable manner.

According to the Interim Independent Electoral Commission, the province has 232,099 registered voters, only 10 per cent of the total population.

In other provinces, registered voters are normally above 20 per cent of the total population.

But nominated MP Mohammed Affey, who comes from the province, dismissed views that the population in the province was unusually high.

“The population has been understated, the figure could have been much higher if the exercise was done accurately especially in places like Wajir South,” he said.

Experts are particularly puzzled by the big difference between the projected population and the actual population. Population forecasting has become a reasonably accurate science.