Nigeria’s population and the cost of blind planning - Punch Newspapers

Nigeria is pursuing a trillion-dollar economy while its population figures remain anchored to a census conducted two decades ago. A credible digital census, universal civil registration and interoperable public data should now be treated as core economic infrastructure. Nigeria is attempting one of the most consequential economic transformations in its history while operating with an uncertain denominator. We debate gross domestic product, school enrolment, hospital coverage, unemployment, poverty, food demand, housing deficits and security exposure. Yet every one of these indicators depends on knowing, with reasonable precision, how many people live in the country, where they live, their ages and the conditions in which they live. This is more than a technical weakness in official statistics. It is a binding constraint on fiscal policy, investment appraisal and public accountability. When the population denominator is unreliable, per-capita measures become unstable, targeting errors increase, and governments cannot confidently compare outcomes across states or local government areas. The result is a recurring paradox: substantial expenditure can coexist with persistent deprivation because money is allocated without a sufficiently accurate map of need. Nigeria’s last population and housing census was conducted in 2006 and returned a population of 140,431,790. The World Bank’s latest series estimates the population at 237,527,782 in 2025, with annual growth of about 2.1 per cent. The difference between these two numbers is not itself evidence of error: one is an enumeration and the other is a model-based estimate produced nearly twenty years later. It does, however, show the scale of the information gap within which public policy now operates. At 2.1 per cent growth, a population of 237.5 million increases by roughly five million people in one year. As a simple mathematical illustration, a rate sustained at that level would double a population in about 33 years. That is not a forecast, because fertility, mortality and migration will change. It is a measure of planning urgency. Every year of delay adds demand for classrooms, teachers, primary healthcare, electricity, water, transport, food and employment. The 2024 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey provides a more detailed warning. Total fertility declined from 5.3 children per woman in 2018 to 4.8 in 2024, but modern contraceptive use among married women was only 15 per cent and just 37 per cent of demand for family planning was satisfied. Under-five mortality fell to 110 deaths per 1,000 live births, from 132 in 2018, but remains unacceptably high. These national averages also conceal wide geographic and socioeconomic differences. A single national number cannot tell a governor which wards need maternal services, where childhood malnutrition is concentrated or where school capacity will be exhausted first. Civil registration exposes another layer of invisibility. UNICEF reported in 2024 that only 57 per cent of children under five had their births registered. A child without a recognised legal identity is harder to connect reliably to immunisation, education, social protection and later economic participation. The Renewed Hope Initiative’s partnership with the National Population Commission and UNICEF to accelerate electronic birth registration is therefore sound policy. It should become the foundation of a permanent system in which births and deaths update the national demographic picture continuously rather than only when a census is held. Nigeria’s youthful population can support a larger labour force, a deeper consumer market and a broader tax base. None of these benefits arises automatically. A demographic dividend appears when declining dependency, better health, effective schooling, productive jobs, financial inclusion and higher female participation reinforce one another. Without those conditions, rapid population growth can magnify unemployment, informality, urban congestion, food insecurity and social instability. The economic cost of weak human capital is already measurable. In February 2026, the World Bank estimated that Nigeria’s deficits in health, education and workplace skills were equivalent to 111 per cent of future labour earnings under its Human Capital Index Plus methodology. The same analysis found that raising effective schooling to 12 years could increase labour earnings by about 20 per cent over the long term. The policy implication is clear: counting people is necessary, but connecting demographic evidence to investment in people is what creates productivity. My professional work across finance, banking, public-sector reform, development advisory and data governance has reinforced a basic lesson: institutions deliver better results when they establish reliable baselines, assign responsibility and measure outcomes against evidence. A balance sheet without dependable opening figures cannot support credible decisions. National planning faces the same discipline. Demographic data is the opening balance of development. President Bola Tinubu has correctly linked a credible census to budgeting and development. When inaugurating the National Census Committee in April 2025, he stated that “you cannot budget if you do not know how many we are.” The Renewed Hope National Development Plan 2026 to 2030 also describes itself as evidence-based and prioritises productivity, human capital, stronger subnational economies, private investment and data-driven implementation. The population agenda should now be organised as the information system that connects these priorities. The required compact should contain five commitments: Iran war triggers cooking gas supply crunch, Nigeria hit Shettima asks Kwara warring APC factions to reconcile Tinubu unveils four-year action plan to end child labour Complete a credible digital census. The census should use technology, geospatial mapping and appropriate biometric safeguards, with transparent methodology, independent quality assurance and published confidence measures. Technology must strengthen public trust rather than turn the exercise into a procurement project. Make civil registration continuous and universal. Birth and death registration should be available through every primary health centre, accredited maternity provider and mobile registration team. Registration within twelve months of birth should become a measurable service-delivery standard for states and local governments. Build an interoperable population data architecture. NPC, the National Bureau of Statistics, NIMC and the health, education, immigration and social-protection systems should exchange only the data required for lawful public purposes. Nigeria needs common standards, unique identifiers, audit trails, role-based access and enforceable privacy controls. A federated architecture is safer and more practical than an unrestricted central database. Introduce demographic budgeting. Every major budget proposal should disclose its population denominator, geographic target and expected service coverage. Capital projects should be tested against population density, travel time and projected demand. Recurrent budgets should show whether staffing follows citizens, particularly in schools, clinics and agricultural extension services. Measure the conversion of youth into productive capacity. The government should publish state and local dashboards covering school completion, learning, maternal and child health, skills, formal employment, enterprise survival and female economic participation. Voluntary family planning and girls’ education must remain central because informed choice, health and opportunity are the most durable drivers of demographic transition. The institutional model matters. NPC should lead the census and civil registration mandate; NBS should reinforce statistical standards; NIMC should support foundational identity; and the Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning should ensure that the resulting evidence changes resource allocation. States and local governments must be delivery partners, not passive recipients of federal data. Universities, professional bodies, civil society and development partners should participate in technical review and public assurance. The system also requires a durable financing model. Census expenditure is large, but postponement has costs that rarely appear in the budget: misdirected subsidies, poorly located infrastructure, duplicate beneficiaries, excluded households and emergency responses planned with weak denominators. A sound business case should therefore compare the cost of the census with the fiscal savings and service improvements that better data can generate over a full decade. By 2030, success should mean more than the publication of a headline population figure. Nigeria should have completed a transparent digital census; achieved near-universal and timely registration of births and deaths; produced regularly updated local-area estimates; linked budget programmes to explicit demographic denominators; and released anonymised data that researchers, investors and communities can use without compromising personal privacy. The World Bank estimates that Nigeria’s economy will grow by four per cent in 2025, while the population will grow by about 2.1 per cent. The gap between aggregate growth and population growth helps explain why macroeconomic improvement may take time to produce a strong increase in living standards. This is precisely why policy must track outcomes per person and by place. Aggregate numbers can improve while millions of households experience something different. President Tinubu’s reforms have created a policy moment in which difficult structural questions are already being confronted. The next step is to ensure that reform is built on a reliable demographic foundation. Nigeria cannot allocate opportunity fairly, protect vulnerable people efficiently or judge the distribution of growth if too many citizens remain statistically invisible. Population is neither destiny nor disaster. It becomes an asset when public institutions convert people into healthy, skilled and economically active citizens. It becomes a liability when governments plan with obsolete counts and fragmented records. A demographic operating system would give the Renewed Hope Agenda the capacity to locate need, direct investment and measure results. In a federation of Nigeria’s scale, that is how every citizen can count in both the statistical and democratic meanings of the word. Dr Kazeem Olayimika Salaam is a chartered accountant and finance, data-governance and institutional-transformation specialist Kindly share this story:

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