With more than 60 per cent of its population under the age of 30, Nigeria stands at a demographic crossroads. This huge dividend, if sufficiently harnessed, could imbue the country with energy, innovation, and economic growth. However, without coordinated action to tackle unemployment, poor education, inadequate healthcare, limited reproductive rights, and other systemic challenges, the country risks deepening inequality, social instability, and a bleak future.
Remarking on this demographic dilemma during the 2025 World Population Day recently, Chairman of the National Population Commission (NPC), Nasir Isa Kwarra, admitted that the country’s “youthful and vibrant population has the potential to be a powerful driver of national development.” He warned that “far too many of our young people face multiple constraints. These realities threaten to turn our potential demographic dividend into a demographic burden if left unaddressed.”
Nigeria is not the first in modern history to be confronted with a youth bulge. It will not be the last. The path of this phenomenon has been trodden, and successfully too, by the likes of China, Singapore, and South Korea, resulting in what has come to be described as the East Asian Miracle. Rather than sail on policy rudderlessness, they turned a high youth population into a catalyst for rapid economic growth through investment in human capital, facilitation of a favourable business environment, and impactful family planning programmes that brought fertility rates down. Consequently, they equipped their youth with the necessary abilities for a productive workforce and created new job opportunities and a dynamic private sector.
With an estimated 230 million-strong population, the last thing Nigeria should attempt to trifle with is having 60 per cent of that figure—approximately 138 million—mired in feelings of marginalisation and despondency. This is akin to lighting a cigar stuffed with sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate. The scenario brings to mind the Arab Spring in the 2000s. With a large youth population frustrated by high unemployment and exclusion from the economy and governance, countries such as Egypt, Tunisia, and Syria reeled from mass protests and political unrest. Already bogged down by insecurity across several states, alongside an estimated 47.2 per cent poverty rate, the Federal Government has little option but to wake up and address the looming crisis.
Regrettably, Nigeria is no stranger to missed opportunities; its prominent precedent being the 1970s oil boom. Offered the golden prospect to lay a foundation for economic diversification, human capital and infrastructural development, its leadership opted for corruption, mismanagement, neglect of traditional economic mainstays, and overdependence on oil production and revenue. The consequences of those missteps continue to haunt the country and the hopes of its unborn generations. Sadly, five decades later, leaders have yet to learn why a prompt reading of the youth bulge—another handwriting on the wall—should take preeminence over self-serving preoccupations and the 2027 election cycle.
Before any pivotal discussions on taking advantage of the demographic dividend, the country must effectively dispel doubts about its population. It is an overstatement that statistics are pertinent to workable development policies. Numbers are not enough; they must be reliably disaggregated and backed by a culture that promotes periodic updates. It is, therefore, encouraging that the government has planned Nigeria’s first biometric census, a truly digital and scientifically verifiable count, which will enhance data integrity and international credibility.
President Bola Tinubu’s mandate to the high-level census committee to ensure budget for the exercise, among others, “aligns with current financial realities”, is instructive. It is a fact that spending must be in sync with resources. However, the mandate risks being interpreted to mean that the critical headcount has yet to come on the list of the Federal Government’s topmost priorities, one for which the State, and all stakeholders, must give everything, lock, stock and barrel. Greater care needs to be taken to ensure that headcount does not end in futility and controversy, while huge funds have gone down the drain.
A core challenge that must be tackled is the widespread denial of reproductive rights. Countrywide, particularly in the North, many women face cultural and familial pressures that strip them of autonomy over reproductive choices. This is compounded by early and coerced marriages, poor sexual education, and limited access to modern contraceptives. The unmet need for family planning continues to spawn unwanted pregnancies, casting a shadow over the country’s prospects for sustainable national development.
There must be awareness that the peculiarities affixed to Nigeria’s brand of youth bulge pose an existential threat to statehood. Besides several efforts toward ensuring the country benefits from its demographic dividend, two elements are outstanding and nearly all-encompassing. They are education and enlightenment. Regardless of the challenges that encumber the nation, Nigerians can only be as focused on bettering their lot as they are awakened to the knowledge and opportunities within their immediate and distant environments.
The authorities must invest in quality and inclusive education. This should include a revamp of the curriculum to prioritise critical thinking and entrepreneurship. They must expand job creation and skills acquisition schemes, support MSMEs with access to finance, market, and mentorship, and promote youth inclusion in governance and policy making. NGOs, for their part, should bridge delivery gaps, providing informal education, digital literacy, and livelihood training. They must also hold the authorities accountable, monitor youth-focused policies, and push for reforms.
Given the prominent role religious institutions play in the nation’s social fabric, clerics must be at the forefront of promoting progressive values and behavioural change. They must preach against child marriage, rather than bless the same. The private sector will be required to step up moves toward collaborations with schools and polytechnics for real-life work experience, even as it boosts investment in business incubators and talent acceleration programmes.
Nigeria’s over 60 per cent youth population need not become a curse or an underestimated explosive device. While the country may not be able to entirely replicate the score of other nations or the management of their demographic complexities, it should, at least, bestir itself to the consciousness that it stands at a tipping point. Will Nigeria rise to shape its future, or fade into history as a cautionary tale? The current leadership’s reaction to the youth bulge and its consequent policy directions will tell.
