Nigeria’s bourgeoning population need not be a burden. But it must be serviced by sound social and physical infrastructure
According to the United Nations population observatory, the global population would hit eight billion by 15th November 2022. It would rise to 8.5 billion by 2030, nudge 9.7 billion in 2050, crest at 9.7 billion by the 2080s and thereafter start plateauing well into the 2100s.
The good news for those who fear that a booming population is a curse: global population might be growing, but it is growing at a declining rate — the slowest since the 1950s. That is why it would start leveling out by the 2100s. Besides, a booming population need not lead to social Armageddon. China has changed its state policy of one woman-one-child to two because the country needs more hands to power her sprawling economy. That also explains why India is on the cusp of overtaking China as the world’s most populous country, though India has chalked up less victories against mass poverty than China.
But it is in view booming population cohabiting with mass poverty that Nigeria must worry. For starters, Nigeria is named among eight countries that would account for more than 50 percent of global population growth between now and 2050. The other seven countries are Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Pakistan, Tanzania and the Philippines. But even among these countries, the most fecund would be from sub-Saharan Africa where Nigeria lies.
Other danger beeps, on this score, are from DRC with perennial tension arising from cross-border wars, and Ethiopia, at the Horn of Africa region, which at the best of times boasts a record in cruel famine and drought.
All of these should worry demographers in Nigeria, as policy makers plot a winning strategy. The population booms while social services depreciate. Besides, a neo-Hobbesian state of acute insecurity stares everyone in the face.
A booming population per se is no curse. Nigeria is a vast country just like the United States that is a near-continent, and there are others like India, Pakistan and China. These countries need fitting population spread to drive their respective economies. That same imperative led the late Muammar Gaddafi of Libya onto “importing” honorary Libyans to cope with the demands of his vast territory sparsely inhabited by people. The challenge for Nigeria is that besides the boom in population, demographic breakdown shows a disproportionate percentage of youths with multifarious demands, whereas facilities are vanishing. The consequence is the crushing pressure on economic centres such as Lagos.
What to do? Birth control, if policy makers have the mindset of accountants and shrewd managers of the nation’s lean treasury. Not that the suggestion is novel, being the thrust of family planning advocacy since the 1980s. But with religious sensibilities so acute and low mass literacy level, the success of the campaign has been extremely limited.
The alternative is to radically expand facilities to cope with rapidly growing demands. That would gel with policy makers with marketer mindset, as it entails deploying more resources to engender higher productivity, development and ultimate prosperity.
On this score, it isn’t as if Nigeria has not made any effort. As at now, there is a policy of free and compulsory public education in place for the first nine years of formal education (up to JS 3 level). Even the perennial strikes by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) is partly a function of the dissonance over whether or not to continue with the huge subsidy on tertiary education, by which Nigerian graduates are trained at dirt cheap rates in public universities and allied tertiary schools. The downside, however, is that everything is progressively collapsing under intense pressure from increasing population demands. The collapse of the tightly controlled scholarship schemes of pre-free education Nigeria, and the near-collapse presently of the education sector has engendered a feeling of listlessness and hopelessness.
That sinking feeling could be found on almost every other front: health, formal elders’ support (if any), and even in the core private sector where the manufacturing that holds the key to employment opportunities is comatose. This doesn’t bode well for Nigeria’s booming population. Add the phenomenon of corruption and the situation becomes more dire.
That is why government must open fresh and urgent dialogues on the present reality. The focus should be on what social subsidies to keep and what to let go; and, of course, to demonstrate an iron will to crush corruption.