Nigeria’s population now 201 million –UN

The United Nations Population Fund has stated that Nigeria’s population has risen to 201 million people.

This was contained in the 2019 State of the World Population Report released on Monday.

From the World Population Dashboard released on the agency’s website, the UN stated  that “Nigeria’s population is now 201 million, the largest in Africa, while its immediate neighbours – Benin Republic, Niger, Chad and Cameroon – are 11.8 million, 23.2 million, 15.8 million and 25.3 million people, respectively.”

The UN agency noted that “life expectancy at birth in Nigeria is now 55 years while the maternity mortality ratio is 814 deaths per 100,000 live births as of 2015.”

It said that Nigeria’s growth rate was at an average of 2.6 per cent from 2010 to 2019, while the fertility rate among Nigerian women had dropped from 6.4 per cent in 1969 to 5.3 per cent in 2019.

This can be interpreted to mean that an average Nigerian woman gives birth to at least five children.

UNFPA said 32 per cent of Nigeria’s 201 million population figure were aged between 10 and 24 years, while those aged between 10 and 14 years were 44 per cent.

Also, according to the report, Nigerians aged between 15 and 64 are 54 per cent while the population of those over 65 years is just three per cent.

The report said, “Reproductive rights are still out of reach for too many women, including the more than 200 million women globally who want to prevent a pregnancy but cannot access modern contraceptive information and services.

“Life expectancy in Nigeria at birth is now 55 years while the maternity mortality ratio is 814 deaths per 100,000 live births as of 2015.

“Ultimately, almost all of the 4.3 billion people of reproductive age around the world today will have had inadequate access to sexual and reproductive health services at some point.

“In 1969, the world population reached 3.6 billion, up about one billion from only 17 years earlier, leading to the establishment of UNFPA.”