The economic roots of world poverty become reasonably clear from an examination of the foundations of economic analysis. In some cases, an economy may be operating to its potential (that is, operating on its production possibilities curve) and yet pervasive poverty remains the order oaf the day.
A fundamental problem fuelling the size and growth of an economy’s poverty rate is the issue of population. Nigeria is the fastest growing economy in Africa and also represents the most populous black nation in the world. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the total population in Nigeria was last recorded at 166.2 million people in 2012, from 45.2 million in 1960, changing 268 percent during the last 50 years. Population in Nigeria averaged 93.39 million from 1960 until 2012, reaching an all-time high of 166.21 million in 2012 and a record low of 45.15 million in 1960. Nigeria’s population represents 2.35 percent of the world’s total population, which arguably means that one person in every 43 people on earth is a resident of Nigeria.
Policymakers over the years have tried to establish the nexus between population growth and the growth of an economy. Whether population pressures are primary problems, when the economy’s production possibilities are such that even achieving maximum output results in excessive poverty, remedial action must be directed toward economic growth. Pushing the production possibilities curve outward requires improvement in either the quality or quantity of a nation’s labour and capital resources or an improvement in the overall level of technology.
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Generally, poverty results from relatively inefficient production methods. Here, remedies should be targeted toward returning the economy to its production possibilities curve. Vital questions to be asked would be: are population pressures serious threats to Nigeria’s living standards? Does the absolute level of Nigeria’s population or its density preclude a high level of wellbeing? The answer is no on both counts.
India is an example of Less Developed Countries (LDCs) with a very large population, the United States and Japan are examples of Developed Countries (DCs) with high levels of wellbeing and relatively large population. While some LDCs such as Chile, Columbia and Venezuela have both relatively high rates of population growth and economies that were stagnant during the 1990s, just the opposite is true elsewhere if we consider Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Mexico and the Philippines, which each recorded GDP and population growth rates in excess of the average DCs during the 1990s. Perhaps the most defensible conclusion would be that while population pressures are not the fundamental cause of Nigeria’s poverty situation, excessive population growth does tend to complicate the problem of scarcity. It’s a popular knowledge that the challenge for most LDCs, especially Nigeria, is finding possible ways of increasing real GDP more rapidly than the country’s population for the purpose of meeting its targets.
The Nigerian policymakers and relevant government ministries and agencies should enhance performance by improving the quality of the labour force, enhance capital accumulation, raise levels of technology, increase efficiency and perhaps adopt mechanisms different from that of Thomas Malthus towards reducing population growth. Even though we agree that government cannot create new capital resources directly, it can at least establish an economic climate favourable to capital accumulation. Government should pursue monetary and fiscal policies conducive to economic stability, enact tax laws that provide specific incentives for capital accumulation, as well as enhance policies in the aspect of social infrastructure.
Finally, in the past couple of years, we’ve seen policy actions already on ground as regards population control. In countries like India, Thailand and China, massive government educational efforts for birth control and family planning have been made. Policymakers in Nigeria should adopt similar policy tools in order to ameliorate and control the diseconomies of scale of population growth in Nigeria.
Sanni Muhammed Ozovehe
