Population, Education And Nigeria’s Cycle Of Poverty

Rasak Musbau

Nigeria’s population today is ranked seventh in the world at over 192 million and is projected to grow exponentially to over 233 million by 2025. This should be of grave concern to everyone, especially in view of absence of national economic plans that could provide jobs for the new addition especially when we are already confronted with a large numbers of idle hands.

Basic knowledge of population growth teaches that population increase is only desirable when accompanied with increase in human capital development, economic activity and good governance. Frankly speaking, Nigeria’s population is already creating a myriad of social issues. Taking development indicators such as literacy rates, poverty rates, quality environment, social justice, gender equality etc into account, one cannot but conclude that our population growth is presently more of a…