Increasing demand on schools and clinics among other basic facilities will strain Nigeria further as the county suffers from a slowing economy and declining revenue with a higher population of 182 million people recorded this year with 40 percent of that population under 14 years of age reports Bloomberg.
Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country has an annual growth rate of 3.4 percent encouraged by rising life expectancy and a declining infant mortality rate.
The West African nation seems to be experiencing the wrong kind of growth since its gross domestic product is expected to shrick to 1.7 percent this year, a first full contraction in more than two decades.
“The implication is that they’re assets, they’re are the future of your country, but they are also liabilities….. We need to know how to plan for their transition from youths to the next category. It has implications for education, health and security, particularly in our environment where you have a lot of unemployment.” Said Ghaji Bello, director general of the National Population Commission
Nigeria hopes to hold a census soon to have the accurate figure to avoid states and municipalities from inflating numbers of people to attract more social benefits and services.
National Population Commission is working towards improving birth and death registration records to enable more accurate adjustments of population figures between census years since only 40 percent of births and 10 percent of deaths are currently registered in Nigeria.
