Data can transform Nigeria’s growing population into blessing – Experts

Experts have said that Nigeria can tap into the immense potential of its burgeoning population by developing and tapping into data. Anything otherwise is unacceptable for the future the country is heading into.

With the current number of unemployed population in Nigeria, Joseph Nnanna, the chief economist, Development Bank of Nigeria (DBN) calls the country’s high population growth rate a curse.

”Nigeria’s high population is currently a curse, ” Nnanna said at BusinessDay’s Economic outlook with the theme: Nigeria’s prosperity ahead of 2030: population, data, productivity.

According to Nnanna, his opinion was based on the current unemployment and underemployment rate in the country.

Nigeria’s jobless rate embarked on an upward spiral in 2015 after a decline to 6.4 percent a year earlier and according to most recent data by the state-funded National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) unemployment rate in Nigeria climbed to 23.1 percent in the third quarter of 2018.

”But it doesn’t mean the population growth rate should remain a curse,” Nnanna said on Tuesday while also asking for measures to increase the country’s productivity.

“There is no country that can grow without empirical evidence,” said Bimbola Salu-Hundeyin, Acting Chairman, National Population Commission.

With a population currently at 201 million and growing at 3.25 percent annually, Nigeria’s population is largely estimated.

The last time the country had a census was in 2006, when the country reported a count of 180 million.

Salu-Hundeyin said without data, the country is going nowhere as data is infrastructure, it’s life and it’s oxygen for any country.

She noted that the current administration under President Buhari is concerned about demographic data and hence is keen on signing the National population policy.

She noted that the lack of population data in the country is denying the country from reaping from the blessing of an increasing population.