A United Nations report has found Nigeria has the world’s third lowest life expectancy rate of 55 years. As per the report released by the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), the life expectancy of an average Nigerian in only better than those of people in 2019.
The report released on Monday listed Sierra Leone, Chad and the Central African Republic with life expectancy rates of 53, 54, and 54 years respectively. Afghanistan has a life expectancy rate of 65 years, Somalia has 58 and Syria has 73 years, reported The Guardian.
The report puts Nigeria’s current population at 201 million from 105.4 million in 1994 and its immediate neighbors, Benin Republic, Niger, Chad and Cameroon at 11.8 million, 23.2 million, 15.8 million and 25.3 million people, respectively.
“Life expectancy at birth in Nigeria is now 55 years while the maternity mortality ratio is 814 deaths per 100,000 live births as of 2015,” the report read.
Notably, Nigeria’s growth rate was at an average of 2.6 percent from 2010 to 2019. The total fertility rate among Nigerian women dropped from 6.4 in 1969 to 5.3 in 2019. This means that an average Nigerian woman gives birth to at least five children.
The report says child marriage in Nigeria by the age of 18 years is 44 percent, while the adolescent birth rate at age 15-19 per 1000 girls in the country is 145.
According to the UNFPA report, 32 per cent of Nigeria’s 201 million population figure is aged between 10 and 24 years, while those aged between 10 and 14 years are 44 per cent. Nigerians aged between 15 and 64 are 54 per cent while the population of those over 65 years is just three per cent.
The report differs slightly from the estimate of the National Bureau of Statistics, which reported in 2018 that Nigeria’s population was 198 million. It remains unclear if the two reports relied on different data, or the country recorded the additional 3 million in the last 12 months.
