The population of Nigeria might significantly increase and reach 450 million people by 2050, a local newspaper reported.
"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," Ejike Oji, chairman of the local organizing committee for the eighth Nigeria Family Planning Conference, said during a media roundtable ahead of the event, as quoted by the media.
However, Ejike noted that the fertility rate in the country has decreased from 5.3% to 4.8%.
At the same time, Martin Migombano, managing director of the Family Planning 2030 partnership in the North, West, Central Africa Hub, said that women in Nigeria face difficulties in giving birth and raising children.
"But the key one is how can a woman get access to family planning? How about commodities? How about the education of the population? So, we need all the partners. It’s a collaborative way of working. And again, after two years, we’ll come and assess whether we have made progress again or not, or we are still stagnating," he said, as quoted by the local newspaper.