Azaghvana E-Book 2003 - Flipbook - Page 73
The estimates presented in Table 1 are my estimates, which I projected with an annual growth
rate of 3% from Population Projection of Borno State (1989), a republication of the 1963
census (see explanatory note). I decided to exclude the settlements still belonging to the
Tokombere District further out on the western plains since my ethnographic survey of 1994
had not included this part of the Gwoza LGA.
We used the structure of villages from the 1994 survey as administrative base units, and then
differentiated between ethnic sub-units of the administrative village structure, which we
subsequently linked with ethnicity and language. We see for example that both Guduf A and
Guduf B as well as Gava are three such administrative base units or villages, but that all three
speak Guduf. When we then look at Chikiɗe as an administrative village, we recognise that it
consists of Chikiɗe-Chinene in terms of ethnicity, but realise that they need to be seen
differently in terms of languages spoken.
When we follow the above example we also recognise that we tried to differentiate as much
as possible concerning population estimates. For example, altogether we have 33,000 Guduf
speakers, but they include 3000 Chikiɗe and 300 Chinene in terms of ethnicity. The latter
demonstrates how few Chinene, in particular, there were.
If we project my 1996 estimates further to 2006, but with a slightly lower annual growth rate
of 2.7%, we arrive at a total of 253,916 inhabitants for the Gwoza hills and adjacent plains. If
we now compare this with the total of 276,312 inhabitants given by the 2006 official census
result for the whole of the Gwoza LGA, we see that my original estimates are fairly valid.
However I have not projected the individual ethnic groups forward to the 2006 census since
we do not know how much and from whereabouts downhill migration took place. Therefore
we leave our estimates at the projection of 1996 since they are much closer to the time of the
1994 survey.
Localised issues of population density and resulting conflict areas
We now want to briefly examine the population estimates for the individual ethnic groups
listed in Table 1, and how I arrived at certain estimates concerning population density.
Estimating population density in the Gwoza hills is not an easy task. We know from the
Cameroonian side, where quite an extensive literature is available to us (Hallaire 1991), that
population density in the northern Mandara Mountains along ethnic identities varied between
100 and 200 inhabitants per square kilometre. Unfortunately there are no such data for the
Gwoza hills, and here we have to rely mainly on my experience by comparison from a rough
field estimation, combined with the counting of houses I performed in parts of Dghweɗe.
For example, by multiplying the number of houses with an average of five members per
household, in Hudimche and Dzga I estimated 150 inhabitants per sq km. Since one sq km is
about the equivalent of 100 ha and one ha is about the size of a football field, I managed to
interpolate on the basis of physical observation. Fortunately all groups of the Gwoza hills live
in nuclear families as the residential unit. This way I estimated in the late 1990s that the
average population density in Dghweɗe and Guduf was between 100 and 150 inhabitants per
sq km. We need to keep in mind that this figure is only an informed guess and that it applies
solely to the hill settlements. If we divide the population figure given in the 2006 census by
the Gwoza LGA of 2,883 square kilometres, we arrive at an overall population density of
about 95 inhabitants per sq km. This figure suggests that the density in the hill settlements of
Dghweɗe and Guduf, and also Gvoko, was significantly higher than in the wider adjacent
plains.
The latter point brings us to the questions of resettlement areas for those hill settlements. We
know that the Dghweɗe have two resettlement areas: Barawa for the inhabitants of Ghwa’a in
the eastern plain, and Kwatama for those of Korana Basa in the western plain. Barawa is in
the southern part of the eastern plain, where arable land is limited by the international
boundary and the nearby Moskota hills. This means that the resettlement area to the eastern
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