Nigeria Tested By Rapid Rise in Population
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL

Published April 14, 2012

LAGOS, Nigeria — In a quarter-century, at the rate Nigeria is growing, 300 million people — a population about as big as that of the present-day United States — will live in a country the size of Arizona and New Mexico. In this commercial hub, where the area’s population has by some estimates nearly doubled over 15 years to 21 million, living standards for many are falling


Lifelong residents like Peju Taofika and her three granddaughters inhabit a room in a typical apartment block known as a “Face Me, Face You” because whole families squeeze into 7-by-11-foot rooms along a narrow corridor. Up to 50 people share a kitchen, toilet and sink — though the pipes in the neighborhood often no longer carry water.

At Alapere Primary School, more than 100 students cram into most classrooms, two to a desk.

As graduates pour out of high schools and universities, Nigeria’s unemployment rate is nearly 50 percent for people in urban areas ages 15 to 24 — driving crime and discontent.

The growing upper-middle class also feels the squeeze, as commutes from even nearby suburbs can run two to three hours.

Last October, the United Nations announced the global population had breached seven billion and would expand rapidly for decades, taxing natural resources if countries cannot better manage the growth.

Nearly all of the increase is in sub-Saharan Africa, where the population rise far outstrips economic expansion. Of the roughly 20 countries where women average more than five children, almost all are in the region.

Elsewhere in the developing world, in Asia and Latin America, fertility rates have fallen sharply in recent generations and now resemble those in the United States — just above two children per woman. That transformation was driven in each country by a mix of educational and employment opportunities for women, access to contraception, urbanization and an evolving middle class. Whether similar forces will defuse the population bomb in sub-Sarahan Africa is unclear.

“The pace of growth in Africa is unlike anything else ever in history and a critical problem,” said Joel E. Cohen, a professor of population at Rockefeller University in New York City. “What is effective in the context of these countries may not be what worked in Latin America or Kerala or Bangladesh.”

Across sub-Saharan Africa, alarmed governments have begun to act, often reversing longstanding policies that encouraged or accepted large families. Nigeria made contraceptives free last year, and officials are promoting smaller families as a key to economic salvation, holding up the financial gains in nations like Thailand as inspiration.

Nigeria, already the world’s sixth most populous nation with 167 million people, is a crucial test case, since its success or failure at bringing down birthrates will have outsize influence on the world’s population. If this large nation rich with oil cannot control its growth, what hope is there for the many smaller, poorer countries?

“Population is key,” said Peter Ogunjuyigbe, a demographer at Obafemi Awolowo University in the small central city of Ile-Ife. “If you don’t take care of population, schools can’t cope, hospitals can’t cope, there’s not enough housing — there’s nothing you can do to have economic development.”

The Nigerian government is rapidly building infrastructure but cannot keep up, and some experts worry that it, and other African nations, will not act forcefully enough to rein in population growth. For two decades, the Nigerian government has recommended that families limit themselves to four children, with little effect.

Although he acknowledged that more countries were trying to control population, Parfait M. Eloundou-Enyegue, a professor of development sociology at Cornell University, said, “Many countries only get religion when faced with food riots or being told they have the highest fertility rate in the world or start worrying about political unrest.”

In Nigeria, experts say, the swelling ranks of unemployed youths with little hope have fed the growth of the radical Islamist group Boko Haram, which has bombed or burned more than a dozen churches and schools this year.

Internationally, the African population boom means more illegal immigration, already at a high, according to Frontex, the European border agency. There are up to 400,000 undocumented Africans in the United States.

Nigeria, like many sub-Saharan African countries, has experienced a slight decline in average fertility rates, to about 5.5 last year from 6.8 in 1975. But this level of fertility, combined with an extremely young population, still puts such countries on a steep and disastrous growth curve. Half of Nigerian women are under 19, just entering their peak childbearing years.

Women Left Behind

Statistics are stunning. Sub-Saharan Africa, which now accounts for 12 percent of the world’s population, will account for more than a third by 2100, by many projections.

Because Africa was for centuries agriculturally based and sparsely populated, it made sense for leaders to promote high fertility rates. Family planning, introduced in the 1970s by groups like Usaid, was initially regarded as foreign, and later on, money and attention were diverted from family planning to Africa’s AIDS crisis.

“Women in sub-Saharan Africa were left behind,” said Jean-Pierre Guengant, director of research at the Research Institute for Development, in Paris. The drastic transition from high to low birthrates that took place in poor countries in Asia, Latin America and North Africa has yet to happen here.


That transition often brings substantial economic benefits, said Eduard Bos, a population specialist at the World Bank. As the last large population group reaches working age, the number of adults in the labor force is high relative to more dependent groups — the young and the elderly — for a time. If managed well, that creates capital that can be used to improve health and education and to develop new industries.
Multimedia

Africa's Population Peril
 
And that has happened elsewhere. Per-capita gross domestic product in Latin America, Asia and North Africa increased between three and six times as population was brought under control, Dr. Guengant said. During that same period it has increased only marginally in many African countries, despite robust general economic growth.

In Nigeria, policymakers are studying how to foster the transition, and its attendant financial benefits, here. In the ramshackle towns of the Oriade area near Ile-Ife, where streets are lined with stalls selling prepaid cellphone cards and food like pounded yam, Dr. Ogunjuyigbe’s team goes door to door studying attitudes toward family size and how it affects health and wealth. Many young adults, particularly educated women, now want two to four children. But the preferences of men, particularly older men, have been slower to change — crucial in a patriarchal culture where polygamy is widespread.

At his concrete home in the town of Ipetumodu, Abel Olanyi, 35, a laborer, said he has four children and wants two more. “The number you have depends on your strength and capacity,” he said, his wife sitting silently by his side.

Large families signal prosperity and importance in African cultures; some cultures let women attend village meetings only after they have had their 11th child. And a history of high infant mortality, since improved thanks to interventions like vaccination, makes families reluctant to have fewer children.

Muriana Taiwo, 45, explained that it was “God’s will” for him to have 12 children by his three wives, calling each child a “blessing” because so many of his own siblings had died.

In a deeply religious country where many Roman Catholics and Muslims oppose contraception, politicians and doctors broach the topic gingerly, and change is slow. Posters promote “birth spacing,” not “birth control.” Supplies of contraceptives are often erratic.

Cultural Factors

In Asian countries, women’s contraceptive use skyrocketed from less than 20 percent to 60 to 80 percent in decades. In Latin America, requiring girls to finish high school correlated with a sharp drop in birthrates.

But contraceptive use is rising only a fraction of a percent annually — in many sub-Saharan African nations, it is under 20 percent — and, in surveys, even well-educated women in the region often want four to six children.

“At this pace it will take 100-plus years to arrive at a point where fertility is controlled,” Dr. Guengant said.

There are also regional differences. The average number of children per woman in the wealthier south of Nigeria has decreased slightly in the last five years, but increased to 7.3 in the predominantly Muslim north, where women often cannot go to a family planning clinic unless accompanied by a man.

The United Nations estimates that the global population will stabilize at 10 billion in 2100, assuming that declining birthrates will eventually yield a global average of 2.1 children per woman. At a rate of even 2.6, Dr. Guengant said, the number becomes 16 billion.

There are signs that the shifting economics and lifestyles of middle-class Africans may help turn the tide, Dr. Ogunjuyigbe said. As Nigeria urbanizes, children’s help is not needed in fields; the extended families have broken down. “Children were seen as a kind of insurance for the future; now they are a liability for life,” he said.

Waiting in a women’s health clinic, Ayoola Adeeyo, 42, said she wanted her four children, ages 6 to 17, to attend university, and did not want more children.

“People used to want 6 or 7 or even 12, but nobody can do that now. It’s the economics,” said Ms. Adeeyo, elegant in a flowing green dress and matching head wrap. “It costs a lot to raise a child.”

Dr. Eloundou-Enyegue worries that Africa’s modestly declining birthrates reflect relatively rich, educated people reducing to invest in raising “quality” children, while poor people continue to have many offspring, strengthening divisions between haves and have-nots. “When you have a system with a large degree of corruption and inequality, it’s hard not to be playing the lottery because it increases the chances that one child will succeed,” he said.

In Nigeria’s desperately poor neighbor, Niger, women have on average more than seven children, and men consider their ideal to be more than 12. But with land divided among so many sons, the size of a typical family plot has fallen by more than a third since 2005, meaning there is little long-term hope for feeding children, said Amadou Sayo, of the aid group CARE.

Babatunde Osotimehin, executive director of the United Nations Population Fund and a former Nigerian health minister, said he is optimistic for a turnaround if governments better support education for girls and contraceptive services. “We can see rapid changes, but that’s up in the air, because you have to be aggressive and consistent.”

Birthrates have edged down to about four children per woman in Kenya, Ethiopia and Ghana.

One recent morning in Lagos, hundreds of patients waited at the Ketu district clinic for treatments like measles vaccines, malaria pills and birth control.

“Of course when the population grows so quickly, that stresses hospitals,” said Dr. Morayo Ismail — although migration from rural areas has also swelled Lagos’s population. A mother of one herself, Dr. Ismail said many poor women still want four or more children.

That evening at the clinic, Bola Agboola, 30, gave birth to her second child. After nurses swaddled the boy, dispensed with the placenta and declared Ms. Agboola well, they whooped, praising God. Then, as Ms. Agboola’s husband entered, some started another chant: “Now start another one. Start another one.”


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/15/world/africa/in-nigeria-a-preview-of-an-overcrowded-planet.html?_r=2&smid=tw-nytimes&seid=auto

At the end of the day, this "oyel" can't be enough.

Even if we share it equally. . too many mouths to feed, too little resources (except for maybe human resources) a big "maybe"

. .Plus very little attempt at increasing productivity? e go hard.

Divide the country. Then this problem will go away.

Kilode?!:
At the end of the day, this "oyel" can't be enough.

Even if we share it equally. . too many mouths to feed, too little resources (except for maybe human resources) a big "maybe"

. .Plus very little attempt at increasing productivity? e go hard.

I tell ya

This is an artificial problem. Divide Nigeria into 9 or 10 countries and it won't look like one country is ballooning to an enormous size. Also, in all likelihood, the divided pieces of Nigeria will adjust to the particular realities/limitations of their economic/developmental situation.

The drastic transition from high to low birthrates that took place in poor countries in Asia, Latin America and North Africa has yet to happen here.

That transition often brings substantial economic benefits, said Eduard Bos, a population specialist at the World Bank. As the last large population group reaches working age, the number of adults in the labor force is high relative to more dependent groups — the young and the elderly — for a time. If managed well, that creates capital that can be used to improve health and education and to develop new industries.

The specialist forgot to mention that many or most of those countries are actually individual/separate nations, unlike in some places where you have many nationalities joined as one. If lower population is believed to be an advantage in rapid industrialization, then it's pretty obvious that division of some existing countries can bring that about. He also forgot that some of the adults in Nigeria are not interested in education or new industries.

PhysicsQED: This is an artificial problem. Divide Nigeria into 9 or 10 countries and it won't look like one country is ballooning to an enormous size. Also, in all likelihood, the divided pieces of Nigeria will adjust to the particular realities/limitations of their economic/developmental situation.
The specialist forgot to mention that many or most of those countries are actually individual/separate nations, unlike in some places. He also forgot that some of the adults in Nigeria are not interested in education, or new industries.

That does not make any sense. Dividing Nigeria will make the squeeze go away?

Kobojunkie:

That does not make any sense. Dividing Nigeria will make the squeeze go away?

I modified my post a bit because I realized that what I was saying might have been a little too subtle.

The point is, if the country is divided, this imaginary problem will go away, because nations of 30 million or 10 million or 5 million don't seem alarming to anyone - and they shouldn't be.

The real problem is not population in and of itself, but industrialization. Dividing the country will help those that want to industrialize do so faster and make those who are not really thinking about such things tighten their belts and stop just reproducing anyhow without regard to their economic/developmental situation.

Nigeria is three times the size of Germany (population 80 million) and many more times the size of Japan (population 127 million), but because this article was written by someone in the U.S. - where some states are as big or larger than countries - they tried to make it seem as if there was some sort of overcrowding problem in the very first sentence. There is lots and lots of unused land in Nigeria. The problem is industrialization not mere numbers alone.

PhysicsQED:

I modified my post a bit because I realized that what I was saying might have been a little too subtle.

The point is, if the country is divided, this imaginary problem will go away, because nations of 30 million or 10 million or 5 million don't seem alarming to anyone.

The real problem is not population in and of itself, but industrialization. Dividing the country will help those that want to industrialize do so faster and make those who do not tighten their belts and stop reproducing any how.

The article does not speak of lack of jobs but of a SQUEEZE . . a COUNTRY-WIDE congestion. I mean how do you make that problem go away, for instance in the school example, by dividing the same school up into 9 or 10 places??

Kobo, I think what I was saying went waaaaay over your head, so I'm not going to bother to discuss it any further with ya. Goodnight.

PhysicsQED: Kobo, I think what I was saying went waaaaay over your head, so I'm not going to bother to discuss it any further with ya. Goodnight.

More like what you said makes little sense considering the problem.

I don't want to debate hat with you either. I just wondered how anyone could arrive at that after reading the contained article.

Kobojunkie:

The article does not speak of lack of jobs but of a SQUEEZE . . a COUNTRY-WIDE congestion. I mean how do you make that problem go away, for instance in the school example, by dividing the same school up into 9 or 10 places??

^^^^^

And you think this makes any sense? So because someone went to Lagos and got confirmation that the place (Lagos) was congested, which it is, you reached the ridiculous conclusion that there's a "country-wide congestion" even though anybody with functioning eyes and half a brain can tell that in MANY places in Nigeria, there is lots of unused land? I've seen that Nigeria is not over-crowded or congested with my own eyes and I don't need to rely on the insinuations of one journalist that visited one place in the country to reach the appropriate conclusion.

This is why I didn't want to discuss the article with you. The article made a ridiculous insinuation at the beginning and you ran with it. Nigeria is not over-crowded, Nigeria is under-developed and virtually pre-industrial and THAT is the issue.

PhysicsQED:


^^^^^

And you think this makes any sense? So because someone went to Lagos and got confirmation that the place (Lagos) was congested, which it is, you reached the ridiculous conclusion that there's a "country-wide congestion" even though anybody with functioning eyes and half a brain can tell that in MANY places in Nigeria, there is lots of unused land?

This is why I didn't want to discuss the article with you. The article made a ridiculous insinuation at the beginning and you ran with it. Nigeria is not over-crowded, Nigeria is under-developed and virtually pre-industrial and THAT is the issue.

Now you are grasping for straws. The problem on congestion in our schools isn't really limited to Lagos, but I will concede that the article does seem to address it's occurrence in Lagos. However, that still does not make what you have said so far any more meaningful than it was 10 minutes ago. Fighting congestion by dividing Nigerian into 9 to 10 bits makes little sense at all.
What you have done is akin to suggesting that dividing China into more countries will somehow make the population problems disappear. lol

PhysicsQED:


^^^^^

And you think this makes any sense? So because someone went to Lagos and got confirmation that the place (Lagos) was congested, which it is, you reached the ridiculous conclusion that there's a "country-wide congestion" even though anybody with functioning eyes and half a brain can tell that in MANY places in Nigeria, there is lots of unused land?

This is why I didn't want to discuss the article with you. The article made a ridiculous insinuation at the beginning and you ran with it. Nigeria is not over-crowded, Nigeria is under-developed and virtually pre-industrial and THAT is the issue.

Now you are grasping at straws. The problem on congestion in our schools isn't really limited to Lagos, but I will concede that the article does seem to address it's occurrence in Lagos. However, that still does not make what you have said so far any more meaningful than it was 10 minutes ago. Fighting congestion by dividing Nigerian into 9 to 10 bits makes little sense at all.
What you have done is akin to suggesting that dividing China into more countries will somehow make the population problems disappear. lol

Kobojunkie:
What you have done is akin to suggesting that dividing China into more countries will somehow make the population problems disappear. lol

Wow...For you to make this ridiculous comparison shows that you really didn't understand what I was getting at. I was too subtle about it. I'm really done. It's just a waste of time discussing this.

I agree with PhysicsQED. . .The numbers are alarming if you look at the figures (180million) and visit Lagos from Arizona. Smaller countries wouldn't make the problem go away but it wouldn't be so alarming and an Industrialised nation of ~70 million people (Southern Nigeria) wouldn't have lack of opportunities.

Schools and hospitals only need to be built with taxes and oil money and not stolen. The universities can open up more campuses or something. Besides an industrialised economy would need a lot of artisans (vocational schools) and so university spaces may still not be too cramped.

ow11: I agree with PhysicsQED. . .The numbers are alarming if you look at the figures (180million) and visit Lagos from Arizona. Smaller countries wouldn't make the problem go away but it wouldn't be so alarming and an Industrialised nation of ~70 million people (Southern Nigeria) wouldn't have lack of opportunities.

Schools and hospitals only need to be built with taxes and oil money and not stolen. The universities can open up more campuses or something. Besides an industrialised economy would need a lot of artisans (vocational schools) and so university spaces may still not be too cramped.

You are assuming there is enough tax, and oil money to go around, to take care of it all then?

Think about these things. You have $100 and can't feed the 167 mouths you have. How does dividing the 167 into 10 groups improve your lot, all 10 to share the same $100, improve the situation? Where is the money to 'industrialize' to come from if your population CONTINUES to skyrocket at the same pace as before you decided to divide up into smaller groups?

In addition, you are told . .

LAGOS, Nigeria — In a quarter-century, at the rate Nigeria is growing, 300 million people — a population about as big as that of the present-day United States — will live in a country the size of Arizona and New Mexico. In this commercial hub, where the area’s population has by some estimates nearly doubled over 15 years to 21 million, living standards for many are falling

How does industrialization, and dividing the nation up into smaller pieces, help that?

Kobojunkie:
@PhysicsQED is arguing that population IS NOT THE PROBLEM, but that by simply dividing the whole nation up into 9 or 10 mini-countries, somehow the problem will not seem as bad.

!!!!!!!

"Mini-countries"?!

"PhysicsQED is arguing that by simply dividing the nation the problem will not seem as bad"?!!

This is why I gave up on you. Please, for goodness sake, make your own analyses independent of what I posted and stop trying to impose your narrow perspective and your distortions onto what I wrote. IGNORE what I wrote and just move on, because it's incredibly frustrating dealing with you.

PhysicsQED: This is an artificial problem. Divide Nigeria into 9 or 10 countries and it won't look like one country is ballooning to an enormous size. Also, in all likelihood, the divided pieces of Nigeria will adjust to the particular realities/limitations of their economic/developmental situation.
The specialist forgot to mention that many or most of those countries are actually individual/separate nations, unlike in some places. He also forgot that some of the adults in Nigeria are not interested in education, or new industries.

Did I make the above up?

And yet one stupid governor will marry out 100 women to an aboki man who knew nothing then to bleep and de woman go kari belly after dem go talk GEJ no dey do him JOB. Dis abokis don over populate naija oooo, de need a country of their own, I wonder how e go look like

Kobojunkie:
Did I make the above up?

The issue I have, apart from the "mini-country" nonsense, is this "won't make the problem seem as bad" comment. It's ridiculous. I am arguing that "the population problem" that is being claimed to exist doesn't really exist but is only an artifact, not that "the problem won't seem as bad." What exists is an industrialization problem.

PhysicsQED: This is an artificial problem. Divide Nigeria into 9 or 10 countries and it won't look like one country is ballooning to an enormous size. Also, in all likelihood, the divided pieces of Nigeria will adjust to the particular realities/limitations of their economic/developmental situation.
The specialist forgot to mention that many or most of those countries are actually individual/separate nations, unlike in some places. He also forgot that some of the adults in Nigeria are not interested in education, or new industries.

Again, this I make this up?

Kobojunkie, I see you've resorted to your habit of just re-posting whatever crap you previously posted. After that, we don't have any business discussing anything further and our conversation should end. Bye.

gboss4sure: And yet one stupid governor will marry out 100 women to an aboki man who knew nothing then to bleep and de woman go kari belly after dem go talk GEJ no dey do him JOB. Dis abokis don over populate naija oooo, de need a country of their own, I wonder how e go look like

Our food system can't keep up. More than 95% of the food we consume is imported. Our health system struggles to catch up. So also the education system. We don't seem to have enough, after taxes, oil, and corruption, to keep up with population growth. I don't see how encouraging people to have more kids, and put more strain on our resources will help at the end of the day.

We should blame the fUC-KIN north. One man + 4 wives = 30 children.
Where is the quality of life? Backward cOWS.

Kobojunkie:

Our food system can't keep up. More than 95% of the food we consume is imported. Our health system struggles to catch up. So also the education system. We don't seem to have enough, after taxes, oil, and corruption, to keep up with population growth. I don't see how encouraging people to have more kids, and put more strain on our resources will help at the end of the day.

That's what am saying, these governors paying dowries for windows to remarry should desist, let them train the ones they already have instead of breeding more children that will turn to almajiri on the long run and then boko.

AGBOR-MAN:
We should blame the fUC-KIN north. One man + 4 wives = 30 children.
Where is the quality of life? Backward cOWS.

Cut the bull . . . the congestion in the South was not created by the North. Unless you are going to tell us next that the Northerners are the one's impregnating your wives in the South so that average is 6 kids to each woman.

This article has really simplified the Nigerian scenario by comparing it with SEA, North Africa, and Latin America. How many of these countries are as diversed ethnically, culturally, mentally, religiously as Nigeria? The reason for the explosion in population are many fold, but the one that hardly get mentioned is the ethnic population competition. The author never thought about that.

Somebody said Nigeria is not overcrowded, that may not be entirely true, because some areas are indeed already congested. Generally speaking, there is enough space in Nigeria.

And to the solution of dividing Nigeria, that could work in some areas where there is nearly ethnical homogenity, or atleast there are no multiple majority ethnic groups as we have now. BTW, if Nigeria divides, the ascending nations would definitely be economically disproportionate. Some nations would have oil, some not. And no one can force them as sovereign nations to share their wealth with their improverished neighbours.

Kobojunkie:

You are assuming there is enough tax, and oil money to go around, to take care of it all then?

Think about these things. You have $100 and can't feed the 167 mouths you have. How does dividing the 167 into 10 groups improve your lot, all 10 to share the same $100, improve the situation? Where is the money to 'industrialize' to come from if your population CONTINUES to skyrocket at the same pace as before you decided to divide up into smaller groups?

In addition, you are told . .
How does industrialization, and dividing the nation up into smaller pieces, help that?

Lagos state gets an average of $800m in IGR annually. This is from an underdeveloped economy. This is also from taxes of major companies and middle to upper class income taxes. The informal economy employs a vast majority of Nigerians and these people do not pay any form of taxes to the government. If they pay any taxes, it is to the pockets of the stoogies of the politicians.

Taking your simple maths, no one is not denying that we need to cut growth rate by at least 50%. However, Dividing 167 into 10 groups can stimulate the individuals to work because if 3 out of the 167 have access to that $100, they may not have $33 if put into the a new sub-group of 16.7 and $10 will not be enough to fund their vulgar lifestyle.

Southern Nigeria needs to a break from this sharing arrangement and such a stimulation can't happen unless there's a break from the past. Which is why breaking up and not fancy jingles or condom sharing or just plainly reciting fearful rhetoric will solve the 'not so grangantuan' problem this article tries to paint it as.

ow11:

Lagos state gets an average of $800m in IGR annually. This is from an underdeveloped economy. This is also from taxes of major companies and middle to upper class income taxes. The informal economy employs a vast majority of Nigerians and these people do not pay any form of taxes to the government. If they pay any taxes, it is to the pockets of the stoogies of the politicians.

Another simple math for you. Lagos is home to about 20 million people currently. So, you have 20 million people accessing that $800 million a year. Do you not see how bad the problem already is with the number you suggest, and how much worse it can quickly get if that population continues to grow at this same rate?

ow11:
Taking your simple maths, no one is not denying that we need to cut growth rate by at least 50%. However, Dividing 167 into 10 groups can stimulate the individuals to work because if 3 out of the 167 have access to that $100, they may not have $33 if put into the a new sub-group of 16.7 and $10 will not be enough to fund their vulgar lifestyle.

We all know how to dream but when you come down to it, the fact is, this problem will not automagically take care of itself. If we do nothing about this particular problem, and instead choose to wait for it to go away, as we have done so many times before now, it will only get worse.

Also, claims that dividing the country up into 9 or more mini-countries will automagically spur change are not based on reality. This is Nigeria -- This is Africa. Enough of the day-dreaming. Rather, we should try our hands at actually solving problems right in front of us, and population has been a problem for quite sometime now.

ow11:
Southern Nigeria needs to a break from this sharing arrangement and such a stimulation can't happen unless there's a break from the past. Which is why breaking up and not fancy jingles or condom sharing or just plainly reciting fearful rhetoric will solve the 'not so grangantuan' problem this article tries to paint it as.

Yes, we all get that, but it has not happened and is likely not going to happen in the next 20-50 years. But in that time, the population will continue to skyrocket UNLESS we do something about that very problem.

^^^
Why did Europeans stop having an average of 9-12 kids as recent as 100 years go? Was it through jingles and fear mongering?

We all know Nigeria is performing way below what she is capable of
and we have the resources (human/financial etc) to build a modern
and prosperous society. It is NOT rocket science to identify your
needs and set out to plan towards effectively satisfying those
needs based on what resources you have. Unfortunately we have
a situation where human beings in positions of authority know
almost nothing about service, economics or how a very high rate
in the population figures can affect/limit development if not
well managed. Sadly their souls have been sold out to insanely
high levels of greed to even care!!

Nigeria's population can be effectively controlled and managed
but I am in serious doubt as to how that can be achieved with
the crop of so called leaders presently ''idling'' away in
various positions of authority in Nigeria. The application of
the 'thought process' is seemingly non-existent in the way and
manner this country has been 'run' for several decades.

But seriously, how did we get to the point where people who knew
nothing about managing their family finances are now the ones
in charge of the nation's purse and mis-managing our lives??