Nigeria has taken on the serpentine strain of a distended stomach with its very large youth population.
By Napoleon Esemudje
Megalopolis On Steroids
To visualize this growth impact, consider Lagos, Nigeria’s most urbanized state. The most conservative reports estimate a population of at least 15 million people within the Lagos metropolitan area. By 2050, the Lagos State Government expects this number to more than double to a population of 40 million people. Analysts have suggested that by 2100, Lagos would be the most populated city in the world with at least 100 million people.
But if it continues to grow at the current pace into the foreseeable future (population growth rate was 3.54% in 2021 up from 3.44% in 2020 and 3.34% in 2019), Lagos could hit a projected population of at least 200 million people in 2100. That is almost Nigeria’s total population today being crammed into a small land area of 3,577 square kilometers with the population density of an inconceivable 55,913 people per square kilometre.
No country or city in the world today has this level of population density. A population size and density of this magnitude will make today’s transport, housing and environmental crisis in Lagos look like a pesky Owambe street party. It would be a challenge that can only be tackled by decades of proactive and strategic urban planning, regeneration, and interventions to avert the devastating proliferation of slums or shanties and the social costs and environmentally poor outcomes these would impose on inhabitants.
It would also require significant and sustained investments in critical, technologically driven infrastructure. Multi-modal mass transit, housing, and other public services such as education, healthcare, power and energy management, recreation and conservation management are just a few issues that must be proactively addressed over the next few decades.
Ultimately, it will also require the deliberate development of new cities across the country and at some point, a more intentional management of internal migration because Nigeria’s other big urban centres will face similar explosion in population numbers.
Kano, with a current population of 4.2 million and an annual growth rate of 2.8% is projected to hit 9.2 million in 2050 and 37 million in 2100. Port Harcourt, currently with a population of 3.2 million and an annual growth rate of 4.9% is projected to hit 12.6 million in 2050 and 135 million by 2100. Abuja, the Federal Capital, currently with a population of 3.6 million has had a feverish but moderating population growth rate over the last three years dropping from a high of 5.91% per annum in 2019 to 5.43% per annum 2021.
However, except its growth rate drops below 5% per annum, Abuja’s population will likely hit 14.3 million in 2050 and 164 million people in 2100. These are extraordinary numbers and almost unbelievable. However, our recent history and the data suggests that nothing can change this current trajectory short of an extended period of mass emigration or a drastic fall in Nigeria’s fertility rates or far less desirable, a calamitous event.
These are very difficult alternatives and perhaps, only a strong and effective campaign against the country’s high fertility rate can offer a remedy. However, a more pressing challenge for Nigeria’s elected representatives may be found in dealing with the present reality of the so called “youth bulge” in Nigeria.
Nigeria’s Pig-in-Python Quagmire
The online Oxford English language dictionary describes the Pig-in-Python phrase as a “statistical increase represented as a bulge in an otherwise level pattern”. This analogy is drawn from the condition of a snake that swallows a prey; in this case, a well fattened pig. Having swallowed such a prey, the snake is forced to concentrate all its resources on digesting the pig. Its stomach or middle region is consequently distended and the snake’s movement is constrained.
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After several decades of a fertility rate averaging 6 children per woman per year (now 5.1 children per woman in 2022), Nigeria has taken on the serpentine strain of a distended stomach with its very large youth population. Almost half (43% or over 90 million) of the country’s total population is under the age of 15 years and 70% (about 150 million) of the total population is under the age of 30 years. A remarkable 82% (over 170 million people) are under the age of 40 years. These young people, stuck behind a small but tenacious governing band of older citizens, is the youth bulge that Nigerian authorities must contend with for the foreseeable future.
Furthermore, the age structure of the Nigerian population has remained fairly constant for decades. Like the country’s fertility rate, World Bank data from 1960 to 2021 shows that the proportion of citizens below the age of 15 years has stubbornly hovered around 41% to 44% of the total population with an average of 43.7%. If these percentages hold steady, then this segment of Nigeria’s population could hit 175 million in 2050 and 320 million by 2100. It is difficult to imagine a country with so many young children but like the metaphorical serpent, the country would need to focus resolutely on converting its abundant youth resources and extracting their hyper energy for high productivity.
The future of a country can be seen on the faces of its children
Obviously, to secure this level of productivity, Nigeria’s young people must receive the best education possible and thereafter be gainfully employed or engaged. Unfortunately, there is a sense that since the 1978 Ali Must Go protests and after years of a faltering economy, successive Nigerian authorities have lost a measure of their enthusiasm and duty of care for the well-being and education of young Nigerians.
Education spending as a percentage of GDP has dropped from a high of 9% in 2012 to roughly 5% in 2021, far less than the double-digit spending by less endowed African countries like Cameroon (14.9%), Zambia (11.5%) and Congo (17.8%). For public schools in many parts of the country, this has been a disaster, with their decrepit infrastructure and operational systems on the brink of collapse.
The result has been a troubling increase in dissatisfied and apathetic teachers, a harvest of young people lacking critical thinking skills or a sense of civic duty, a deepening culture of youth crime (a sinister variety is euphemistically described as ‘cult activities’ particularly in state-owned schools), and a surge in violent felonies from traffic robberies to kidnapping and brigandage.
Worse still, a growing number of young people have been seduced by a broken culture centered on the rabid and amoral acquisition of money by all means including rampant online or electronic fraud. Others have sought social relevance and power in extremist dogma that places little value on human life or development.
And as public education standards flounder due to poor funding and supervisory negligence, many parents, particularly in urban locations, have sought alternatives for their children, paying as high as the equivalent of 2-6 months wages to keep their wards in private schools. For many parents this is simply not possible or sustainable and the prospects for the country’s poorly educated juveniles appear dire.
Today, there are more than 18 million out-of-school children in Nigeria according to UNICEF. That is 1 out of every 5 children or 20% of Nigerians under the age of 15 years. If this rate remains unchanged (as it has been for several years), the number of out-of-school children could be as high as 35 million in 2050 and 64 million by 2100.
The implication for the country’s social stability is best imagined particularly if unemployment and poverty rates (currently at 33% and 90% respectively) persist into the future. Unlike the employment rate, which only ticked up sharply in recent years, the poverty rate has been relatively high for many years.
Projected into the future, such rates could see the number of people living below the poverty level of US$5.50 per day jump to 351 million people in 2050 and over 600 million by 2100. These are incredibly catastrophic numbers that must not materialize. It is important to remember that regardless of their poor circumstances, many would do whatever it takes and exploit all circumstances to fulfill their desperate but basic need for food, clothing, shelter and sexual relationships.
Fortunately, countries like China and India have shown that it is indeed possible to move hundreds of millions of people out of poverty within a few decades. But to achieve this requires resolute political will backed by the right socio-political economic structures. This is where predictive data falters and history once again beckons.
