EIGHT BILLION ON A SMALL GLOBE

the third most populous country on Earth, even after so many Nigerians have ‘japa’ to that country! We are not the only country in the population fast league. India is expected to overtake China as early as next year as the world’s most populous country. So, all the forced sterilisations that Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s government did in the 1970s did nothing to slow Indians down?

We Nigerians seem to think that the world population map is a kind of Olympics medals table, and that the higher our place in it, the more glorious we are. This year, the ranks of this table are China, India, USA, Indonesia, Pakistan, Nigeria, Brazil, Bangladesh, Russia and Mexico. Brazil is too busy with the struggle between Lula and Bolsonaro to catch up with us. Russians’ attention is diverted to Ukraine, while Mexicans are kept busy by drug lords. Therefore, by 2050, Nigeria would have leapfrogged on the population table above Pakistan, Indonesia and even USA to become third in the world after India and China! Right now we are the only African country in the population Big Ten but by 2050, two more African countries, Ethiopia and DR Congo, would have joined us in the Big Ten!

Only last week, National Bureau of Statistics reported that 133 million of us out of 200 million are gripped by Multi-Dimensional Poverty. At this growth rate, we may be talking about 3D poverty in Nigeria by 2050. Our GDP growth rate has been limping far behind population growth rate for many years now. Never mind what caused it. If

things remain this way, then by 2050, we would be much more numerous and also much poorer on a per capita basis than we are now. There could be less food to eat, less land to farm, more crowded houses in the cities, much more congested suburbs, more congested roads and city buses, more congested classrooms, longer hospital queues and many more unemployed.

Will our power supply improve by then to electrify all our houses and work places? Otherwise, how much will petrol, kerosene, cooking gas, diesel and even firewood cost when so many people are chasing dwindling supplies? Will there be more bandits, insurgents, kidnappers, pipeline vandals, Yahoo boys and bank account scammers?

While our population is galloping at

horse-race speed, the UN estimates that two-thirds of the world’s population today live in a country where birth rates cannot maintain the current population size. 61 countries are projected to experience a 1% or more population decrease by 2050. Bulgaria, Latvia, Lithuania, Serbia and Ukraine are projected to suffer a 20% population decline each by 2050. China’s population could be halved by 2100, perhaps because the Communist Party enforced a one child per couple policy for decades. With issues like these facing us, who is talking about rift in PDP, composition of APC campaign council, one former governor’s investments are next to nothing, or even, that a party chairman is not welcome to lead his party’s campaign in a certain state?