POPULATION GROWTH/CHANGE

POPULATION GROWTH/CHANGE

Population growth has three (3) components, namely;

11)    Birth

22)    Death and;

33)    Migration

Population growth can be either positive or negative. Historically, World’s population has increased very slowly until the 20th Century where growth has accelerated to proportion (Population bomb or population explosion) result from world’s birth rate was higher than the world’s death rate. But before, the world’s birth rate and the world’s death rate were equal leading to slow growth of population but at the beginning of the 19th Century the death rate decline. The world enter 21st Century with over 6 billion people and today the world’s population is 7.4billion (within just less than 17years it changes from 6 billion to 7.4 billion)

            In 1952/1953 census, the total population of Nigeria was 30.4 million equivalents to 2.1% growth rate (i.e. the last colonial census before independence). The next census conducted in 1963 (first indigenous census) was 55.6 million with a growth rate of 5.6%. In 1973, Nigerian census was controversial and the result was unacceptable but in 1991, the census conducted then puts Nigeria’s population at 88.5 million and the growth rate came down to 2.6% because after 1963 census, Nigeria attended world’s population conference and their eyes were opened and saw the need to be checking the population because they were aware of the consequences. It was then that Nigeria open borders to contraceptives and also introduce family planning; there was a conscious attempt to regulates and checks population, all these leads to the decline of the population growth from 5.6% to 2.6%.

            In 2016, Nigeria’s population was over 140 million and today Nigeria’s population was estimated to be 187million with population growth of 2.5%. This indicates that Nigeria is one of the fastest growing in the whole world. Nigeria is ranked the most populated country in Africa and No. 7 in the world. This was as a result of high fertility rate in Nigeria of about 5.5 – 6TFR

Consequences of Rapid Population Growth

1)    Pollution

2)    Insecurity

3)    Traffic Jam

4)    Congestion

5)    Spread of contagious diseases

6)    Outbreak of epidemics

7)    Deforestation

8)    New forms of criminality emerges etc