The Nation Newspaper

Tag: population

  • Fed Govt to prepare for population upsurge

    Fed Govt to prepare for population upsurge

    The Federal Government said it intends to make adequate preparations for the expected upsurge of population.

    It said adequate preparations would be through effective urban planning, management and building the needed resilience and innovations to absorb the expected shocks.

    The government said urban dwellers now account for more than 50 per cent of the population and are expected to increase to 60 per cent by 2030.

    Minister of Housing and Urban Development, Ahmed Dangiwa, said the issue of financing for affordable housing and urban infrastructure remains the cardinal focus.

    Read Also: 24 million Nigerians homeless, says Population Review

    Dangiwa said this in Abuja at the commemoration of 2023 World Habitat Day/World Cities Day.

    He said: “The Federal Government is paying very thoughtful attention to the issues and challenges of urbanization. The issue of financing for affordable housing and urban infrastructure remains our cardinal focus and we solicit collaborations from our development partners and other stakeholders.

    “It is a phenomenon that can be harnessed to enhance economic productivity, inclusive growth, and environmental sustainability. Urban dwellers now account for more than 50 per cent of our population and are expected to increase to 60 per cent by the year 2030.

    “It is our duty therefore to make adequate preparations for the expected upsurge of population in our towns and cities through effective urban planning and management and building the needed resilience and innovations to absorb the expected shocks.”

  • Population explosion and Nigeria’s future

    Population research is a broad area of life and living understandably because our world is a tangled web of relationships. No country is a complete island. Consequently, aspects of its sovereignty have to be surrendered to the world order so as to remain afloat the stream of modern education, cultural exchanges/flows and sustainable development. Indeed, the tempo of population studies has been increasing in most parts of the world in the last two decades or thereabouts. This scenario cannot be neatly separated from the emergence of new challenges, problems, expectations, sensitivities, values and value-systems. Population and sustainable development are intertwined. As a matter of fact, growth opportunities for the masses must be located in the domain of sustainability derivable from appropriate handling of internal dynamics. In this connection, Nigeria cannot afford to be an exception. Population growth all over the world is unending. However, the strategies for managing this all-important human affair vary from one country to another. Again, these strategies are to some extent, time-bound.

    As a result of the encyclopedic nature of population studies, everybody, regardless of his cultural, racial, and disciplinary background is a stakeholder at least to some degree. The Nigerian population which was 45 million in 1960 had increased exponentially to 201 million or thereabouts by April 2019. It (population) has been growing approximately by five million annually since 2016, despite the unprecedented, extreme poverty that characterizes life and living in the country. This abject, endemic material poverty has its long, firm roots in bad governance. According to the Nigeria Population Forecast by the United Nations, specifically the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the geo-polity (Nigeria) may reach 410.6 million humans by 2050 and consequently, becoming the third most populous country on our planet. Similarly, Nigeria’s census figure by 2070 is most probably going to be as high as 550 million. This stands in sharp contrast to the United Kingdom that will be just 80 million by the same period.  Therefore, population growth rate in this part of the global village is alarming and by the same token, worrisome. Such a development is an invitation to a higher rate of insecurity and misery. This gains its relevance against the background of a gross lack of proactive measures by the Nigerian government over the years.

    India is another country faced with the challenges of exponential population growth that may reach 1.454 billion by 2028. This is higher than the China’s figure of 1.452 billion by the same period. It is a fact, that human populations tend to increase much more rapidly than the means of subsistence. According to Thomas Malthus, a British philosopher and political economist, human population naturally increases geometrically while the power of the improvements in food resources goes up arithmetically leading to disequilibrium.

    This disequilibrium promotes a lot of crises bordering on economy, security, health and politics among others. But Nigeria should not breathe a sigh of relief because of the high Asian population figures. China and India unlike Nigeria are not folding their arms because they know that there is fire on the mountain. Thus, for example, the Indian government has recently crafted some population stabilization policies which include home delivery of contraceptives to the citizens. In addition, counsellors have been appointed to advise new couples to delay for at least two years after marriage before having babies. They are also to ensure spacing of births, at least three years after their first children. Apart from the above, the government encourages and provides safe abortion services through the lenses of early pregnancy testing.

    Some years ago, the Nigerian government was not totally unaware of the ugly consequences of an exponential population growth. As a matter of fact, some few steps were taken about three decades or so ago although with little success. No doubt, a high population can be a strength if the citizens are properly educated and healthy leading to increased productivity in all its ramifications. That is to say, that a healthy and thoroughly educated large population can boost economic productions. This includes a huge local market for manufactured products. But a bunch of illiterates in a broad sense (not just people who cannot read and/or write in English language) is a burden to the country.

    Based on the narrow, conventional conceptualization of literacy, about 40 percent of the total population figure of Nigeria are illiterates. But in actuality, many products of tertiary institutions today in Nigeria are also illiterates because they have little or no culture-loaded education. In other words, no space for African epistemologies in their training programmes. This leads to a low level of productivity in technology and agriculture even as the country’s population figure goes up geometrically.

    Currently, the world human population is over eight billion, despite the fact that the carrying capacity of our planet is two billion. About 90 percent of this figure is in Africa and the rest of the developing world. This leads to more stresses and strains on the human society. There would be severer competition for scarce resources in the future in order to survive. Such a scenario would further substantially cripple our humanity. The federal government in 1988 drafted the first population policy for Nigeria. It was revised in 2004. The central goal of the policy was to control fertility, mortality, and migration in order to pave the way for robust standards of life. But painfully, this policy never worked.

    For any population growth reduction to happen in Nigeria, cultural and religious peculiarities must be put on the front burner of operation. That is, a paradigm shift from ethnocentricism to ethnorelativism.  For instance, among certain ethnicities in the country, pro-natalism reigns supreme.  Consequently, child marriages and rearing of babies like rabbits are a plus in the 21st century. Therefore, a considerable degree of expertise and diligence is needed in order to gradually re-orientate the minds of such people towards anti-natalism. There is need for the government to create a powerful task force made up of experts in cultural anthropology, sociology, history, geography, demography, and medicine among others. We cannot do this by threat of the whip. The other option is to modify the content and morphology of the grammar of the National Population Commission. The National Orientation Agency and National Centre for Arts and Culture must be ready to network with the above task force.  Churches, mosques, market places and schools are also good platforms for promoting this awareness on a regular basis. The serious environmental pollution, extreme hunger, a lack of drinkable water, ritual killings, kidnapping,  and terrorism that are being experienced today, would be a child’s play in the next two decades or thereabouts, if the government did not strike a balance between the available natural resources and human population.

     

    • Professor Ogundele writes from Dept. of rchaeology and Anthropology, University of Ibadan.

  • 51% of world’s population connected to internet

    ABOUT 51.2 per cent of the global population, or 3.9 billion people, will, at the end of the year, be using the internet, International Telecommunication Union (ITU) has said.

    The ITU is the United Nations’ (UN’s) specialised agency for information communication technologies (ICT). Of all ITU regions, the strongest growth was reported in Africa, where the percentage of people using the internet increased from 2.1 per cent in 2005 to 24.4 per cent in 2018.

    According to the estimates, the regions with the lowest growth rates were Europe, with 79.6 per cent, and the Americas, with 69.6 per cent of the population using the Internet. In the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) region, 71.3 per cent will be using the internet, 54.7 per cent in the Arab states and 47 per cent in the Asia-Pacific region.

    ITU’s Secretary-General, Houlin Zhao, said the agency’s global and regional estimates for 2018 are a pointer to the great strides the world is making towards building a more inclusive global information society.

    “By the end of 2018, we will surpass the 50/50 milestone for internet use. This represents an important step towards a more inclusive global information society. However, far too many people around the world are still waiting to reap the benefits of the digital economy. We must encourage more investment from the public and private sectors and create a good environment to attract investments, and support technology and business innovation so that the digital revolution leaves no one offline,” he said.

    The new estimates show that there continues to be a general upward trend in the access to and the use of ICT, according to the  Director of the ITU Telecommunication Development Bureau, Brahima Sanou.

    Access to telecoms networks, he said,  has continued to increase, particularly in mobile connections. “However, affordability should continue to be at the top of our priorities for the digital economy to become a reality for all,” he said.

    According to ITU, in developed countries, slow and steady growth has increased the percentage of population using the Internet from 51.3 per cent in 2005 to 80.9 per cent in 2018. In developing countries, growth has been much more sustained, increasing from 7.7 per cent in 2005 to 45.3 per cent at the end of this year.

    Mobile access to basic telecoms services is becoming ever more predominant. While fixed-telephone subscriptions continue to decline with a penetration rate of 12.4 per cent this year, the number of mobile-cellular telephone subscriptions is greater than the global population. Growth in mobile cellular subscriptions in the last five years was driven by countries in Asia-Pacific and Africa regions.  But the same growth was minor in the Americas and the CIS region while a decline was observed in Europe and the Arab states.

    Broadband access has continued to demonstrate sustained growth, while fixed-broadband subscriptions are increasing. Also continuing the trend reported in 2017, there were more fixed-broadband connections, with 1.1 billion in 2018 than fixed-telephone than the 942 million recorded last year.

    The growth in active mobile-broadband subscriptions has been much stronger, with penetration rates increasing from 4.0 subscriptions per 100 inhabitants in 2007 to 69.3 in 2018. The number of active mobile-broadband subscriptions have increased from 268 million in 2007 to 5.3 billion this year.

    Developing countries are registering much faster growth in mobile broadband subscriptions compared to developed countries. In developing countries, penetration rates have reached 61 per 100 inhabitants in 2018, with much more scope for further growth in the coming years. In LDCs, penetration rates went up from virtually zero in 2007 to 28.4 subscriptions per 100 in 2018. The strongest growth in mobile broadband subscriptions has been observed in Asia-Pacific, the Arab states and Africa.

    Nearly the entire world population, or 96 per cent, now lives within the reach of a mobile cellular network. Furthermore, 90 per cent of the global population can access the internet through a 3G or higher speed network.

    ITU estimated that, globally this year, almost half of all households had at least, one computer up from just above a quarter in 2005. In developed countries, 83.2 per cent of households possess a computer this year, compared with 36.3 per cent in developing countries. LDCs showed the strongest growth during the period 2005-2018. This year, less than 10 per cent of households in LDCs has a computer. The strongest growth rates were observed in the Arab states and the CIS region. In Africa, the proportion of households with access to a computer increased from 3.6 per cent in 2005 to 9.2 per cent this year.

    Internet access at home is gaining traction. ITU estimated that almost 60 per cent of household has internet access at home in 2018, up from less than 20 per cent in 2005. In developing countries, almost half of all households has internet access at home, a considerable increase compared with 8.4 per cent in 2005. Regional developments broadly follow the trends observed for households with computers.

  • Our Girls; Water hyacinth; clone? NASS out? population?

    Our Chibok girls were kidnapped on April 15, 2014. Inexplicably our Dapchi girl, 15, Leah Sharibu is not released.

    Congratulations to Super Falcons for winning the ninth Africa Women Cup of Nations, AWCON. Well deserved.

    A few weeks ago, the Senate and I believe the House of Representatives suspended sitting because the sound system was out. If every Nigerian institution closed for one day or more because of a sound system failure, we should expect nothing for development. Surely the National Assembly, NASS, is still in Nigeria and specifically in Abuja where sound systems are easily available for hire within an hour or two. What a disgraceful example of waste of public trust to the citizens. Meanwhile the destructive activities of herdsmen continue unabated.

    Channels TV carried an item on the Mountaintop University research into the use of the weed known as water hyacinth to make paper. This is very good as the water hyacinth seems to be ravaging all our waterways, hindering boat transportation and obstructing local fishing activities as well as covering large areas of water hindering light and gas exchange altering the eco-environment for fish, algae and other marine life.  If you use a social web research programme like Google, Bing etc, you will find 20 other uses for water hyacinth which you may also champion by informing others in your local area and through your local institutions like universities and polytechnics and schools. A look from the Third Mainland Bridge will attest to the serious nature of this water hyacinth epidemic

    President denies being a clone. Very good. When he is ill, they say he is too ill to rule. When he is well, they he is too well to be himself. Me I do not know o! I have acted old and young people on stage with the help of a little makeup. Medically, the matter is simple. Confirmation of who is who is as easy as a DNA test on the whole family which confirms parentage of the children and closes the case. Surely the whole family was not cloned if anyone was cloned at all. Therefore get that DNA done by an impartial witness.

    We the citizenry must become much more politically active and articulate our expectations of future government policies. We must support only candidates willing to work along the lines we chose as the expected future of the nation. Some suggested lines include support candidates willing to work to get:

    1. Politicians on Grade Level 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24 the highest for serving presidents.
    2. Home state to fix the salary and pay it and accommodation since the politician is on posting from the state.  Similarly LGAs can pay the state assembly members
    3. Reduction of ridiculous political salaries and perks SAPing Nigeria dry.
    4. The imposition of sitting allowances
    5. The cancellation of constituency projects and route all development project request in good time through the relevant ministerial budget structure for approval and routine execution by the relevant ministry with no further interference or financial involvement of the NASS chambers
    6. A huge increase in budgets to health and education
    7. A huge increase in FG, state and LGA scholarship and youth empowerment schemes on a scale more in proportion to the student population.
    8. A single house by cutting out one particularly the senate
    9. Insist that judges finish cases before moving on promotion
    10. To put people policies in place

    This sounds like a tall order. However most elections are won or lost utilising only 40 or 45% of the vote. The rest of the votes are unused or unusable if criminally obtained. The legitimate voters dissatisfied with the current big two or three parties can change the political narrative simply by coming out and concentrating or one candidate.

    Really 190 million???? Guesstimated census and now supported by UN! Unfortunately, we are just parrots repeating conjectures and invention of concocted ‘fake’ census figures. Our National Population Commission, NPC has failed to pass the truth and integrity test and any figures will not be believed by the aggrieved. Only the majority is happy to preserve the imposed status quo. Electricity Corporation of Nigeria, ECN, Power Holdings Company of Nigeria, PHCN and successors are expert at what in Nigeria has become known as a ‘Guestimate’, a hyper-inflated imagined bill designed to punish the customer or perhaps force him to pay a bribe. Old NITEL became a super-specialist if you made the mistake of having international calls on your phone.

    We keep boasting that we are 190m people in Nigeria. How? Based on false census figure bloated for politico-ethno-religious malicious reasons since the 50s when the British tampered with the results to precipitate our life-long census problem? Assuming a conservative 20-30% inflation figure, we are probably 150m-ish. If we are actually the figure advertised, our successive leaders, most still alive should hang their heads in collective shame Nigeria’s ‘failure to thrive’ and refusal to meet all our Millennium and Sustainable Developmental Goals milestones allocated by the UN agencies for all countries.

    Does any of the incumbent NASS members deserve to be sent back after they effectively stabbed Nigeria in the heart by messing up the budget year by seven months, and persisting in taking ridiculous and unjustified salaries and perks totally out of proportion to the service, if any, that they may collectively or individually have rendered.

     

    • Uncover ‘I LOVE NIGERIA’ KNOWLEDGEABLE CANDIDATES for 2019 -SDG 16.     

  • High diabetic population

    •It’s high time government at all levels created awareness on prevention of diabetes

    November 14 is observed worldwide as World Diabetes Day, to call global attention to the causes, effects and preventive measures and management of diabetes mellitus. It is believed that about 500 million people are living with the disease worldwide and sadly, more people are coming down with the disease daily around the world.

    Ondo State Commissioner for Health, Dr. Wahab Adegbenro, during this year’s event stated that about 20 percent of the citizens in the state are living with diabetes. This is quite alarming and we want to believe that being in the same country with almost the same lifestyles, consumption patterns and other similar causative factors, the whole country might be predisposed dangerously to the same alarming or even worse statistics.

    Diabetes mellitus is a disease that prevents the body from properly using the energy from the foods consumed. There are two conditions that can lead to the disease. The pancreas might produce insufficient or even no insulin – a vital hormone produced by beta cells of the pancreas which helps the body to use sugar for energy. On the other hand, the pancreas might even produce insulin but it still does not work optimally. This is often referred to as insulin resistance.

    There are different types of diabetes; type 1 occurs mainly in children, type 2 is an adult onset diabetes, there is also the gestational diabetes that affects pregnant women under certain conditions like over 35s, obesity in pregnancy, history of polycystic ovarian syndrome, genetic history and the use of certain steroids contained in medications. Type 2 diabetes can also be caused by abnormal blood cholesterol, high blood pressure, age, history of gestational diabetes and smoking.

    Wrong diets, lack of physical activities, large and uncontrolled consumption of sugar sweetened drinks, saturated fats, trans fats, excessive consumption of white rice and other starchy foods are top on the list of the causes of type 2 diabetes, which in turn leads to other dire health conditions often leading to death when not properly managed.

    However, we commend the commissioner for raising the red flag on diabetes but this must be a wakeup call to all health ministries and other agencies in charge of foods and drugs in Nigeria. There is an urgent need for strict regulations on certain sugar-laden fizzy drinks consumed by Nigerians. There is an urgent need to compel the manufacturers of these drinks to properly indicate the sugar and alcohol content on every serving no matter the packaging.

    We are aware that former New York Mayor, Michael Bloomberg, had proposed the Sugary Drinks Portion Cap Rule otherwise known as the Soda Ban to limit the amount of soft drinks that can be served everywhere in New York to just 16 ounces (0.47liters) in restaurants, theatres and all other public places. It was a commendable move aimed at restricting the consumption of these sugary drinks by the citizens and assist in not only raising awareness about the effects of excessive sugar in the body but saving the state huge losses in deaths, disabilities and management of diabetics.

    Beyond strict regulations, government at all levels must creatively start a massive awareness campaign across the country to educate Nigerians on healthy dietary habits, need for physical activities and reduction in smoking or total stoppage. Producers of consumer items can also be forced through laws to indicate that excessive consumption of certain foods and drinks can result in the development of type 2 diabetes. In a largely illiterate population, there is need to possibly use communities, markets, churches, mosques, schools and other social gatherings to create awareness.

    Prevention, they say, is better than cure and as such, all efforts must be made by all the health institutions concerned to save citizens from themselves literally because all health matters ultimately affect the nation generally. The 20% statistics of those living with diabetes might even be conservative figure in a country not known for correct data collection and exact statistics. The time to act is now.

  • Nigeria’s growth not enough to create jobs, says IMF

    …Experts fret over impending of global financial crisis

     

    The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned that Nigeria’s projected growth may not be enough to create jobs for the country’s growing population.

    The IMF in its World Economic Outlook 2018 noted that “Nigeria’s projected economic growth in the sub-Sahara Africa from 3.1 percent this year to 3.8 percent in 2019 is not enough to create the needed jobs for the growing population of the region.”

    This projected growth the fund further cautioned may not be enough for the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals, “if the trend remains for a while.”

    The three leading economies of the continent, Nigeria, South Africa and Angola were projected “to witness sluggish growth in 2019 and beyond. While Nigeria will grow from 1.9 per cent in 2018 to 2.3 percent in 2019, South Africa and Angola are projected to move from 0.8 to 1.4 and -0.1 to 3.1 per cents respectively.”

    IMF’s chief economist and director of research Maurice Obstfeld, told journalists that “what affects the three major economies affect the whole continent as majority of the countries relies on their trajectories.”

    He admitted that the continent “will witness growth next year but the growing number of working class coupled with less jobs opportunities, huge public debts and poor infrastructure present a challenge in achieving the developmental goals of the United Nations.”

    Milesi Ferretti, Deputy Director Research said while presenting the report that “the continent could do much better once these economies are on the a more solid footings, particularly South Africa and Nigeria because they are really large and affect a number of countries in their neighbourhood.”

    On the global ratings, IMF cut its global growth forecasts as a result of the trade tensions between the U.S. and trading partners. The Outlook said the global economy is expected to grow at 3.7 percent this year and next year — down 0.2 percentage points from an earlier forecast, as the trade war started to hit economic activity worldwide.

    “We are concerned about the downturn in economic growth,” noted Jubilee USA Executive Director Eric LeCompte. As a finance expert, LeCompte has tracked IMF meetings for nearly 10 years and is attending the meetings in Bali. “The report reminds us that inequality remains a serious problem and we still are not safe from financial crisis” he warned.

    “We are seeing a growing debt crisis in many developing economies,” stated LeCompte who also serves on United Nation expert groups that focuses on economic issues. “At the same time, we see risky and speculative behavior on the rise. We know that risky behavior and unsustainable debt is a recipe for financial crisis.”

    The IMF issues the report ahead of the Annual IMF and World Bank meetings where world leaders, finance ministers and nongovernmental organizations will gather this week in Bali, Indonesia.

  • 149m Nigerians talking

    If it were a major index of a nation’s economic wellbeing, it would have been said that Nigeria has achieved major growth, even prosperity.  But the number of active mobile telephone lines in a country may at best, only give an indication of the population of such a country; perhaps an idea of teledensity and the net-worth of major players in the industry.

    Notwithstanding, the indices emanating from the Nigerian Telecommunications Commission (NCC), the chief regulator of Nigeria’s telecoms sector, are quite salutary and uplifting.

    According to NCC’s current monthly Subscribers  Operator  Data (SOD) report , active mobile lines in Nigeria rose from about 148 million in February to approximately 149 million in March, 2018.

    Apart from active telephone lines, the number of connected mobile lines also increased from 237.6 million in February to 238.1 million in March. This means that while over 238 million mobile lines are connected in Nigeria, only about 149 million are in active use.

    Other remarkable indicators from the NCC report include the fact that the number of internet users in Nigeria decreased marginally from 100.9 million to 100.6 million.

    We commend the NCC for keeping us up to speed with the critical activities and indicators in this most critical sector of our economy. We recommend this level and frequency of reporting to other regulators in the various sectors of the economy.

    We also commend the various firms (telcos) in the industry –  both major and minor – for keeping up the faith in the economy and operating in spite of the harsh operating environment that Nigeria represents.

    The landscape is lined with hurdles and challenges some of which are alien in most other climes. Yet these firms have continued to operate and forge ahead. Electricity power for instance has remained a major obstacle to businesses generally in Nigeria, but particularly so as concerns the telecoms sector because the business does not brook downtime or power outage.

    What this means is that most of the telecoms sector – large as it is – must run on generator; or rather, backed up generators. This calls for massive investment with attendant costs.

    Other operational snafus faced by telecoms firms include numerous and extortionate taxes and levies from federal, states and local government authorities; difficulty in getting permission like right of way and incessant vandalism of facilities, among others.

    Having said that, telecoms rules the world today and it is the road ahead. It is poised to be the dominant industry for a very long time to come. But pricing remains largely still at the discretion of the vendors and providers, especially in an undeveloped country like Nigeria.

    Nigerians had a bitter taste of what may be called pricing rape during the launch of the General System of Mobile  (GSM) telephone in Nigeria about 17 years ago. Sim cards which are now handed out for free were sold for as much as N20,000. Calls were charged at per minute rate instead of per second, among other atrocious practices.

    Some of these still persist, though in less pernicious ways and as it is apparent, most of the telecoms companies are smiling to the bank. But what is troubling is that services have not improved. Hardly can one hold telephone conversation in Nigeria for one minute with the connection not acting up. If it is not muffled, the lines would crackle, break or the connection would simply drop.

    Telephone conversations are carried out here by screaming; and often you see people hold the mobile phone to the mouth as if it were a candy bar. Some would do the shuttles between the ear and the lips because the connections are hardly clear. It is worse with internet connection which has remained some form of status symbol still when it should be near-free. Connections are still largely slow apart from in few highbrow areas and the pricing still skewed.

    There is something called Value Added Service (VAS), a situation in which telcos allow all sorts of interlopers invade subscribers phones and extract all manner of unsolicited services. The so-called services are often imposed on unsuspecting subscribers and credits stealthily taken out of subscribers’ wallet in the manner of pick pockets.

    In the midst of all these, it has been a helluva battle getting the major telcos to go public with their shares by getting listed on the Nigerian Stock Exchange so that Nigerians may partake in the telecoms boom.

    Only MTN, the leading telco has promised to take a little bit of its block of shares public but when that will happen is still in the realm of conjecture.

    Nigeria is a big market for telecoms and it is growing yet. The journey ahead is long and the prospect is very bright. But the telcos that adopt a win-win business approach are the ones that will go the distance and indeed, reach El Dorado.

     

     

  • Population and waste infrastructure needs

    With a rising population, the continuous management of waste in Lagos State remains a herculean task. But more challenging is the provision of critical infrastructure to manage waste, especially in an emerging ‘Smart City’ like Lagos. Muyiwa Lucas examines if the strategic partnership between the state and Visionscape Sanitation Solution to deliver the requisite waste management infrastructure is the much needed elixir for a turnaround of the situation.

    The statistics are staggering! As the commercial heartbeat of Nigeria, and fifth largest economy in Africa, Lagos State stands tall in the comity of states. Quite understandably, it presupposes that the state offers better economic opportunities than other states in the country and beyond its shores.

    According to a World Economic Forum (WEF) report, Lagos State receives an inflow of 85 people per hour; today, the state is said to have an estimated 24 million residents. This figure shows it has over three million people more than what it had in 2015.

    With rural- urban migration becoming the order of the day, so also comes the attendant challenges, one of which is a higher turnover in waste generation. This easily became apparent in the number of litter black spots, illegal dumpsites, and bad odour, as waste became a problem that the State struggled to manage.

    The larger challenge

    Yet, this is part of a larger challenge of urbanisation, generally seen as progressive and leads to a higher standard of living. This also leads to higher purchasing powers and the social pressure to display prosperity through acquisition of various items and luxury of life. According to social experts, a higher consumption level equally leads to higher waste generation.

    However, the various administrations in the state seem to have been proactive in addressing this challenge of waste management through numerous interventions to address this municipal problem.

    For instance, in 2011, the Babatunde Fashola administration upgraded the waste management agency of the State – Lagos Waste Management Agency (LAWMA), – with Mr. Ola Oresanya as its head. The agency improved the regulation of waste collectors and the commissioning of three transfer loading stations (TLS) within the State.

    Expectedly, this initiative led to visible improvements in the collection of residential waste across the State. But from hindsight, this measure was only effective as short-term plans, because the State, like other mega cities in the world, required working infrastructure to manage disposal, and work towards resource recovery.

    The inadequacy of this was also evident in the overflowing unsanitary landfills across the State. The biggest of these is the Olusosun landfill, which is said to be the largest landfill in Africa and one of the largest in the world.

    The Olusosun landfill sits in the middle of the city, bounded by a major car park and on the international airport route. Experts knowledgeable in the business of waste management claim that the Olusosun landfill has led to economic haemorrhage in tourism, and more importantly in environmental sustainability and healthcare.

    Notably, in March 2018, waste decomposition and the presence of hazardous materials in the landfill led to a methane gas explosion that destroyed several vehicles and became a health threat to residents of the area. This incident underscored the urgency for waste management infrastructure upgrades in the State. It also highlighted the key reason for the decisions taken by the government to introduce the Cleaner Lagos Initiative (CLI) as a new waste management reform.

    Changing the rhythm

    The CLI is a holistic plan to address all aspects of the waste management process, from collection to disposal and resource recovery. Under the CLI, Visionscape Sanitation Solutions (VSS), won the bid to develop and manage the core of the waste management infrastructure.  This means the firm is to take concession of an existing, but lesser used, landfill at the outskirt of the State. VSS has since begun the construction of the first engineered sanitary landfill in West Africa. The landfill will be situated within a larger 88-hectare Ecopark in Epe, a town in the northwestern part of the State.

    The construction of the landfill is in its early stage, with excavation, bioremediation, transportation and refilling of previously buried waste, currently in process.

    As part of the modern feature to be fitted into the Epe sanitary landfill, a well-equipped control centre and weighbridge has also been completed to ensure that waste collection and disposal are monitored for data gathering and for use in future planning. The facilities within the premises will include a materials recovery facility (MRF), engineered landfill cells, wastewater and leach ate treatment plants, recycling facilities, waste-to-energy plant, as well as a designed green area, and more. The engineered landfill will be the first of several to be built in different parts of the State, in order to meet the needs of the burgeoning population.

    With this in place, amongst other facilities being tinkered with, waste management in the state may be on the way of meeting international standards.

     

  • Discordant tunes over Nigeria’s rising population

     Nigeria’s rising population currently estimated at about 198 million by the Nigeria Population Commission, has raised concerns over the rippled effects on the nation’s socioeconomic wellbeing, reports Daniel Adeleye

    The recent announcement that the nation’s population is 200 million was greeted with mixed reactions, most of which were not pleasant, which is just as well. Of course, the reasons for this are not far to seek: people are worried about alarming population explosion, no thanks to the successive governments that had failed to device any strategic approach to managing  the explosion.

    Nigeria is the most populous nation in Africa, the seventh globally with an estimated population of over 198 million with the recent world population prospects predicting that by 2050, Nigeria will become the third most populated country in the world.

    According to the Chairman of Nigeria Population Commission, (NPC) Eze Duruiheoma, Nigeria’s current population is 198 million people with urban population growing at an average annual growth rate of about 6.5 per cent.

    The NPC boss gave this hint in New York recently while delivering Nigeria’s statement on Sustainable Cities, Human Mobility and International Migration at the 51st session of commission on Population and Development.

    According to statistics available, Nigeria grew substantially from 17.3 in 1967 to 49.4 per cent in 2017 with the 2014 world urbanisation prospects report also predicting that by 2050; most of the population – 70 per cent – will be residing in cities.

    Pressed further, the NPC chief stated that the category of population mostly engaged in urbanisation and migration were young people of teenage and adolescents’ girls and boys, women of child bearing age and the working age population.

    He said existing urbanisation trend coupled with internally displaced persons in cities, pose critical challenges to securing sustainability of cities, including efforts to make them smart and responsive to human influx.

    “Like in other developing countries, Nigerian cities hosted wide spread poverty, under-employment and unemployment at an average of 18.4 per cent, as indicated by the national bureau of statistics 2017 report,” he noted.

    Nigeria’s population is equivalent to 2.55 per cent of the total world population of 7.6 billion and ranks the country number seven in the list of countries and dependencies by population

    According to a stakeholder who does not want his name in print, the Nigerian environment, its natural resources, economy and facilities are fast being degraded and consumed as a result of human population increase.

    “Population growth in Nigeria is very fast and influences different spheres of people’s lives. Nigeria is a country with the largest human population in Africa and popularly regarded as the `Giant of Africa’ for its population.

    “Some of the imminent and unavoidable results of the continuous increase in human population include human congestion, high unemployment rate, environmental pollution and degradation, depletion of resources and weather modification.

    “Unhygienic living conditions, elevated crime rate, conflicts, political instability, scarce resources, hunger and high rates of disease spread,’’ he submitted.

    In his own assertion, the Programme Director of Development Communication Networks, (Devcoms) Akinlabi Jimoh, stated that the major factor that triggers population explosion in Nigeria is increased birth rate, adding that there is a need for Nigerians to be properly educated on the need to control birth rate and its consequent advantages.

    Jimoh said that Nigerians birthing practice is such that they have a desire for large family sizes and also have issues related to medical skills and logistics.

    “Recently the National Population Commission, (NPC) stated that in the next couple of months or years, our population will be above 200million. The issue is when a budget is being planned for a million people in an area for electricity consumption and then you have 2million or more. Or in a situation whereby we plan for a certain number of children to go to school, but we end up having more, we’ll realise that the quality of education, the livelihood and the quality of lives will be affected.”

    “Talking about family planning, it goes beyond individual; it requires involvement of virtually everybody; the government, communities, individuals, and other stakeholders.”

    “There are also commodities that utilise and consumable that requires funding when we talk about family planning. And it’s one thing to allocate funding for a programme; it’s another to release the funds. So if funds are allocated and it is not released, then there is a problem.”

    The frontline health journalist impressed on government at various level to improve on the allocation budget and focus on the supply side to ensure that people’s need are being met.

    Explaining the benefits attached to birth control, the Lagos State Team Leader of the Nigeian Urban Reproductive Health Initiative, NURHI, Dr Edun Omasanjuwa, said unless Nigerians, control the rate of which population are growing, whatever the infrastructure government put in place would not be sufficient for masses.

    “Let’s take for instance that government plans for 24hours uninterrupted power supply to a 1million people in a particular community, and it took government ten years  to build or to complete the project and during that ten years, the population of that area or society has increased to 10 million people. Such infrastructure provided by the government will never be enough for that community or society.”

    Also speaking on the subject, a professor of financial economy and Dean, Faculty of Business Administration, University of Uyo, Prof. Leo Ukpong said, though the actual population of Nigeria is unknown, but the 180 million figure projected is based on the estimated birth and mortality rate.

    According to him, “The estimated population ranges between 198 million to 202 million. I believe a much reliable figure is probably somewhere around 200 million people.”

    Ukpong observed that with an estimated annual population growth rate of 6.5 per cent and a base of 200 million persons in Nigeria today, it means in the next ten years (2028), Nigerian population will be approximately 442 million persons, adding that the real problem would be in the youth category, with approximately 33 per cent of youth unemployment rate, 146 million will not be unemployed.

    “With our inadequate infrastructure, such high growth rate of population will lead to high crime rate, high rate of inflation, high interest rates, high rate of unemployment, especially amongst the youth (18 years to 35 years old); deforestation and other negative impacts on the environment; and possibly high mortality rate across the entire population,” he explained.

    The financial economist suggested that, to reduce the negative impact associated with high population growth rate, which he described as a ‘time bomb’, public (and private) policies to increase Nigeria’s socio-economic welfare must be pursued and instituted.

    “Such policies include, investment in technologies that will increase yields from agriculture; improved and efficient health care services; and general macro-economic policies that will lead to increase in our economic productivity.”

    “Education plays an important role in the long-term reversal of the above listed negative consequences from high population growth rate. More specifically, education targeted at reducing the average family size will be necessary to help in achieving a sustainable population growth rate of somewhere between 2 to 3 per cent,” he projected.

  • NACCIMA urges FG to make increasing population an asset

    National President of the Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA), Iyalode Alaba Lawson has urged the Federal Government to turn the country’s 198 million population into an asset.

    Speaking on the recent announcement, The national president of the Nigerian Association of Chambers of Commerce, Industry, Mines and Agriculture (NACCIMA), Iyalode Alaba Lawson has urged the Federal Government to turn the country’s 198 million population into an asset. by the NPC, Lawson said that Nigeria’s Population is now estimated to be million thus making our country as the 7th largest in the world.

    “Population could be an asset, but if not planned it equally poses a lot of challenges in various areas like provision of infrastructure, adequate health care system and service; an appropriate educational system and employment for the populace,” she said.

    “Therefore, in meeting these challenges,the NACCIMA national President said it require proper planning by Government at all levels and close collaboration with other stakeholders.

    She disclosed that NACCIMA as the voice of business and a national body engaged in promoting activities of the private sectors in all major sectors is ready to work with Governments at all levels to ensure that the Nigerian population becomes an asset.