By 2050 Africa’s most populous nation could have nearly 400 million people squeezed into a country one-tenth the size of the United States
, marking the largest number of our species to live on the planet at once. No one knows exactly the time or place this landmark was reached or who number 8,000,000,000 is.
Statistics are crucial for projecting the future, but they’re also detached from the human beings they’re supposed to represent. So let’s look into the future of Nigeria, my home country, through the eyes of Eziaku, who will grow up in a place that will be far different from the one in which her parents and I grew up.Travelers and vendors mingle near the Oshodi bus terminal in Lagos, Africa’s largest city with more than 15 million people.
Sitting in the only bedroom of their apartment in the Kubwa suburb of Abuja, Amara rocks a sleeping Eziaku while her two-year-old sister, Ifeyinwa, scampers around. The couple’s double bed is neatly covered with a blue bedspread; across the room a pink spread covers a smaller bed for the children. Amara smiles as she touches Eziaku’s tiny fingers and toes. She takes photos and videos of the baby being cuddled by her sister.
Nigeria’s fertility rate was more than seven births per woman when Kenneth was born in 1983. In 2004 the government launched a 10-year plan to reduce the fertility rate to just over four births per woman and increase the use of contraceptives to 30 percent of the nation’s sexually active population. Over the next decade the fertility rate dipped but only to 5.5 births per woman, while less than 10 percent of couples used contraceptives. The policy’s failure wasn’t that surprising.
Last fall, I traveled to the town of Abeokuta to see Obasanjo, who’s been obsessed with Nigeria’s food supply for nearly 50 years. I met him at the penthouse of the building that houses both his private residence and his presidential library.
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