The 2006 national population census stated that after the count that Onitsha has population of 300,000 plus without stating the fact that the count was disrupted by the activities of MASSOB which is a pro biafran group who are against the activities of the federal government in the south eastern part of the country, one of the enumerators lost her life. These incidents were not put into consideration when declaring that Onitsha has a small population of 300,000 with all the activities going on in it.
This has had huge effect in Anambra as it has had huge impact on the revenue it gets from the federal government judging from the fact that population is a key decider in the revenue sharing formula of the country.
As at December 2019 an independent body who collects data about cities in Africa and Urbanization by name Africa Polis recently revealed that Onitsha Metropolis has an estimated population of 8.5 million and the 3rd largest city in africa by population only behind Cairo and Lagos whom have 22.9 million and 11.8 million respectively.
This discovery begs to ask if the Government body saddled with the responsibility of having the actual statistics of the population of the country which is the National Population Commission has not deemed it necessary to conduct a well planned census for 15 years now.
