Percentages by Religion of the 1952 and 1963 Populations of Nigeria's Present 36 States

Abstract

The last Nigerian censuses that gathered data on religious affiliation were those conducted in 1952 and 1963. The country was then divided for administrative purposes into regions, provinces, and divisions, with further subdivisions into districts and Native Authorities. The smallest units for which data on religious affiliation are given in the census reports are the divisions. The very limited purpose of this paper is to present the 1952 and 1963 census data on population by religion within Nigeria’s then divisions (of which there were 95 in 1952 and 94 in 1963), as data on the 1952 and 1963 populations of Nigeria’s present 36 states. In short, the old divisions and the census data associated with them, have been allocated to the present states as nearly as may be. The detailed results of the exercise, organized by the former Northern, Western, and Eastern Regions, are given in Tables E-G, in section 5 of the paper. The resulting percentages by religion, of the 1952 and 1963 populations of Nigeria’s present states, extracted from Tables E-G, are summarized in Tables A-C in section 3. Section 2 briefly discusses the data and some of the problems the analysis presented. Section 4 aggregates the regional data to yield Table D, showing percentages by religion for the whole country in 1952 and 1963.

Keywords: Nigeria, religion, religious affiliation, percentages, census, 1952, 1963