Nigeria’s population as guesswork

Nigeria yesterday joined the international community to mark this year’s World Population Day.
The Day is an annual event, observed on July 11 every year, which seeks to raise awareness of global population issues.
The event was established by the Governing Council of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in 1989.
It was inspired by the public interest in Five Billion Day on July 11, 1987- approximately the date on which the world’s population reached five billion people.
The theme of this year’s World Population Day was “Family Planning is a Human Right”.
This year’s celebration focused on family planning.
In her message for the Day, the Executive Director of United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA), Natalia Kanem, noted that family planning was not only a matter of human right but also central to women’s empowerment, reducing poverty and achieving sustainable development.
Kanem pointed out that some 214 million women still lack safe and effective family planning owing to lack of information or services as well as absence of support from their partners and communities.
She explained that the organisation was fully committed to continuing to support member-nations’ efforts to uphold the rights of individuals, especially women, to plan a family, assuring that the body “is striving to end all unmet needs for voluntary family planning in developing countries in 2030.
“But we cannot do this alone.
There is the need for government, parliamentarians, private sector and civil societies to join forces to make it happen.” According to the most recent United Nations estimates, the human population of the world is expected to reach eight billion in the spring of 2024.
Population in the world is currently growing at a rate of around 1.14 percent per year.
The average population change is currently estimated at around 80 million per year.
Annual growth rate reached its peak in the late 1960s, when it was at 2% and above.
The annual growth rate is currently declining and is estimated that it will become less than 1% by 2020 and less than 0.5% by 2050.
UN projections indicate that world population will nearly stabilise at just above 10 billion persons after 2062.
By 2030 India’s population is expected to surpass China, to become the largest country in the world.
Nigeria’s population is expected to surpass the United States population in 2045 to become the third-most populous country in the world, starting to rival China by the end of the century, with almost one billion people in 2100.
The theme of this year’s commemoration is quite germane.
Family planning is, no doubt, an antidote to population explosion.
However, for socio-cultural and religious beliefs, the practice has suffered setbacks in many parts of Nigeria.
As a result, many families mass-produce kids that they have no wherewithal to cater for.
We recall the attempt made by the former Military President, Gen.
Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida, to stymie the high growth rate of the country’s population with a policy of four kids per a family.
The policy could not stand the test of time and had to be jettisoned ostensibly because it was pursued desultorily or it had no force of law.
Currently, Nigeria’s population is based on guesswork.
It is widely estimated at between 180m and 200m.
No one can accurately state how large we are now.
The figures being bandied about are based on the 1991 head count that stood at 140m, using an annual growth rate of 3.5 per cent.
Then, then there is the political dimension where each region accuses the other of inflating figures for economic gains.
It is such a huge shame that Nigeria, despite the resources available to it cannot conduct credible head count in a 21st Century world.
It is also a demographic disaster in the sense that a nation that cannot boast of an accurate census cannot plan for its citizens.
Nobody can say for sure the nation’s annual birth and death rates.
Furthermore, we make bold to say that achieving higher population, though an asset to a nation, is not enough.
A nation that cannot cater for its population by providing the citizens with basic necessities of life such as food, shelter, healthcare, as well as education, employment and security will find its citizens a liability rather than an asset.
Nigeria’s participation in the annual commemoration becomes meaningless if we continue to grope in the dark, unable to plan accurately year in and year out for our socio-economic well-being now and in future.