Lara Adejoro Nigeria’s population may rise to 450 million in 2050 if urgent action is not taken to address the growing population, family planning experts have said. The experts expressed their concerns at a media roundtable on Tuesday ahead of the eighth Nigeria Family Planning Conference organised by the Association for the Advancement of Family Planning in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, and other family planning stakeholders in Abuja. In his opening remarks, the Chairman of the Management Committee, AAFP, and Chairman of the Local Organising Committee for the conference, Dr Ejike Oji, said Nigeria’s fertility rate was high and there was a need to reduce the rate to four per cent.
Ejike, who is also the Nigeria CSO Focal Point FP 2030 stated, “If we continue with the same fertility rate that we have now, our population is going to be driven to 450 million by 2050. “If we do not bring down our fertility rates, by the year 2050, we will be 450 million, based on the percentage increase every year. Every year, we add about four million people to our population.
So if you look at that, you know that it’s going to be a lot of problems for us.” He further noted, “Remember that the increase is geometric. It’s not that it will stop at four million because there’s a percentage driving it.
It’s four million this year; next year, it might be 4.2 million; the following year, it might be 4.5 million; it may get to a point where i.