I find a lot of the responses to this tweet indicative of the kind of society we are.

A man drew inference based on data. Thus far, 19 people have quoted the tweet.

Not one has said, "This data is misleading, because of x."

Rather, 7 have gone straight to the word, "bigot". https://twitter.com/tundeleye/status/1283501649340891136

It is rather interesting when your default response is an ad hominem, and even more interesting when it is a whip that has been used so often that it has now lost its value.

That kind of behaviour is usually a reflection of the very person making the accusation.

As one of the original "bigots" on Nigerian Twitter, I have seen this clan of bigots grow in number ever since I was first called a bigot after this tweet in April 2015. https://twitter.com/Chxta/status/592957083261206528

The bigot clan has become more cosmopolitan too. Time was when that tag was reserved exclusively for Igbo people. I observed that as well. https://twitter.com/Chxta/status/946803178481254400

But times are changing it appears.

As of last year, Saatah and William, who are bonafide South-South boys, had become bigots.

Now our bigotry camp is expanding to include South-West chaps such as Tunde.

On a serious note, some discussions are meant to be had.

#Nigeria as it currently is constituted, is not working.

The process of getting it to work, or deciding that it cannot work and thus untangling the whole thing, will be messy.

And in that messiness, we can't afford for narrow-minded people to dominate the conversation simply because they have the ability to make noise and coordinate in packs on social media.

Let us look briefly at Tunde's argument.

Katsina and Maradi border one another, have similar geographies, similar vegetation, and crucially, similar teledensities.

This is open-source data, and I've been to both places, so the attack that Tunde hasn't gone around doesn't fly.

What I'd expect is someone to explain why Katsina has a far larger population density than Maradi, so we can have a healthy debate, and understand each other without all this illiterate name-calling.

But I've concluded that that's too much to ask.

From my POV luckily, because this particular gang have used this strategy of name-calling way too often, it is beginning to lose its potency.

When our knock-off jersey printing friend first called me "bigot" back in April 2015, it made me reflect, and made me cautious.

I mean, just a month prior we'd all been on the same Sai Baba team.

How come had I become a "bigot" so suddenly?

But as the word kept being thrown each time I voiced an opinion that the herd didn't like, I realised that this word was a weapon to silence alternative voices.

Then something strange happened. It made me stronger.

I've also noticed that it has made others stronger too.

This is the thing about the misuse of a weapon that can't kill.

It only makes your adversary stronger.

Now as to the reactions that prompted this thread.

Unfortunately, this is the general Nigerian attitude to new information that the Nigerian does not like, no matter how factual.

We attack the source of the information rather than look critically at it.

It's a national culture.

It's why we've been pumping money into Ajaokuta that's for 40 years not produced one ingot of steel.

It's safe to say we'll keep chasing political settlements, not economically sound decisions.

It's safe to say #Nigeria is unlikely to ever develop.