Short Acknowledgement
I am happy to post this article on nairaland, as it marked my first post on this prestigious forum, after being an unregistered member for the past 3 years. Thanks for trying to take out of your little time to read the article. Am also anticipated in your response on this article.


According to Worldometer elaboration of the latest United Nations data, in 2020, the total population of Nigeria was over 206 million, which shows that the population has increased from 158 million in 2010. At present, Nigeria is now over 218 million as of December 3, 2022, which brings worry some mind to the people of Nigeria, where the majority of the people believe that Nigeria is now overpopulated because of such total population number in the country.

The population is the total number of people living or occupying a given geographical area over a definite period. It was further divided based on the size of the people and the level of the available resources in the country or area, which are overpopulation, underpopulation, and optimal population. In this article, I will dwell on overpopulation, to make it clearer and understandable.



Overpopulation is a situation or a case in which the size of the total number of people living in a given country is relatively or proportionally higher than available resources. Resources simply mean the physical factors that can fulfill or satisfy human wants. For example, let's put money into consideration. The majority of humans on earth, not even the majority, but all humans demand money not for consumption but as a means of satisfying their numerous wants. In that case, we can regard money as a typical example of resources because it has fulfilled the definition of resources. Money is not only the type of resource we have, we still have land, air, sand, gold, diamond, and so on, which can all be regarded as a natural resource because it is all gotten from nature. In a given country with 100 million people and 500 thousand estimated available resources, we can observe that the size of the population in that country is more than the total estimated available resources and that the country will be regarded as an overpopulated country. An overpopulated country will experience a high degree of competition among the people since the population is more than the available resources in the country.



Economists are concerned with two terms to determine whether a given country is over, under, or optimally populated, which are the size of the population and the available resources in that economy. Nigeria is one of the most blessed countries with an abundance of resources in Africa, and examples are gas, tin, iron, limestone, a high degree of fertile soil, and so on. In Nigeria, there is still unused land in some rural areas where the majority of this land is extremely fertile for plantations. If all this land is utilized and managed well, there will be an improvement in the standard of living of an individual in Nigeria. For instance, if we can make use of land with a high degree of fertile plantations for plantations and a non-fertile policy of industrialization, it will improve the growth and development of the country. Industrialization is the policy of creating and establishing industries in some areas of the country and this policy will also bring about economies of scale where the input cost will be low and an increase in total output produced, which will result in the cost per output produced being bargainous or affordable to the consumer. There are also many positive results for the economy entirely when this policy is initiated.



In Nigeria, I can say that we are overpopulated because of the rapid rate of unemployment which serves as a major indicator of an overpopulated country. Based on what I have said so far, Nigeria is not an overpopulated country but suffering from two major economic problems, which are efficient allocation of resources and utilization of resources, which make it seems that Nigeria is overpopulated.

Nigeria can never be over populated, if anything we are even under populated ... The thing is, we crowd ourselves in certain towns and cities like a bunch of rat but the land mass that is within our borders can house ALL Nigerians home and abroad 100 times over and still be left...

We only lack foresight... And the will to innovate ... We hate change of any kind !!! That is why many are endorsing APC after they have raped us for 8 years and counting.

I don’t think Nigeria is over populated. Our available resources are under utilized and the ones under utilized are not still well managed. So many things are not right in the country.