Estimate population figures at state administrative level and different age groups

Chart and table of population level and growth rate for the Nnewi, Nigeria metro area from 1950 to 2025. United Nations population projections are also included through the year 2035.

As of July 2024, Nigeria's population was estimated at around 229.5 million. Between 1965 and 2024, the number of people living in Nigeria increased at an average rate of over two percent. In 2024, the population grew by 2.42 percent compared to the previous year. Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa. By extension, the African continent records the highest growth rate in the world. Africa's most populous country Nigeria was the most populous country in Africa as of 2023. As of 2022, Lagos held the distinction of being Nigeria's biggest urban center, a status it also retained as the largest city across all of sub-Saharan Africa. The city boasted an excess of 17.5 million residents. Notably, Lagos assumed the pivotal roles of the nation's primary financial hub, cultural epicenter, and educational nucleus. Furthermore, Lagos was one of the largest urban agglomerations in the world. Nigeria's youthful population In Nigeria, a significant 50 percent of the populace is under the age of 19. The most prominent age bracket is constituted by those up to four years old: comprising 8.3 percent of men and eight percent of women as of 2021. Nigeria boasts one of the world's most youthful populations. On a broader scale, both within Africa and internationally, Niger maintains the lowest median age record. Nigeria secures the 20th position in global rankings. Furthermore, the life expectancy in Nigeria is an average of 62 years old. However, this is different between men and women. The main causes of death have been neonatal disorders, malaria, and diarrheal diseases.

Chart and table of population level and growth rate for the Onitsha, Nigeria metro area from 1950 to 2025. United Nations population projections are also included through the year 2035.

In Nigeria, people aged up to four years old made up the largest age group of inhabitants, where 8.1 percent are boys and 7.9 percent are girls. Similarly, children aged five to nine years held the second largest share in the population. Overall, the higher the age, the lower the share.

Nigeria is the African country with the largest population, counting over 230 million people. As of 2024, the largest city in Nigeria was Lagos, which is also the largest city in sub-Saharan Africa in terms of population size. The city counts more than nine million inhabitants, whereas Kano, the second most populous city, registers around 3.6 million inhabitants. Lagos is the main financial, cultural, and educational center in the country. Where Africa’s urban population is booming The metropolitan area of Lagos is also among the largest urban agglomerations in the world. Besides Lagos, another most populated citiy in Africa is Cairo, in Egypt. However, Africa’s urban population is booming in other relatively smaller cities. For instance, the population of Bujumbura, in Burundi, could grow by 123 percent between 2020 and 2035, making it the fastest growing city in Africa and likely in the world. Similarly, Zinder, in Niger, could reach over one million inhabitants by 2035, the second fastest growing city. Demographic urban shift More than half of the world’s population lives in urban areas. In the next decades, this will increase, especially in Africa and Asia. In 2020, over 80 percent of the population in Northern America was living in urban areas, the highest share in the world. In Africa, the degree of urbanization was about 40 percent, the lowest among all continents. Meeting the needs of a fast-growing population can be a challenge, especially in low-income countries. Therefore, there will be a growing necessity to implement policies to sustainably improve people’s lives in rural and urban areas.

Abstract

The 2004 Nigeria DHS EdData Survey (NDES) was a nationally representative sample survey covering 4,268 households, 3,987 parent/guardians, 81 independent children age 13-16, and 9,695 children age 4-16. The primary objective of the 2004 NDES is to provide upto date household-based information on education among children of primary and secondary school age in order to inform the development, monitoring, and evaluation of education programmes in Nigeria. The survey focuses on the factors influencing household decisions about children’s school attendance. In addition, information is available on school attendance, costs of schooling (monetary and non-monetary) and parent/guardian attitudes about schooling. The 2004 NDES was the first education survey of its kind in Nigeria, and was linked to the 2003 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (DHS). The survey report (available under External Resources) presents information on adult educational attainment, children’s characteristics and rates of school attendance, absenteeism among primary school pupils and secondary school students, household expenditures on schooling and other contributions to schooling, and parent/guardian perceptions of schooling, among other topics.

The sample size for both the 2003 Nigeria DHS survey and the 2004 NDES was sufficiently large to provide estimates for indicators at the national level, by urban-rural residence, and at the regional level for most indicators. Twelve survey teams trained by the National Population Commission (NPC), in collaboration with the Federal Ministry of Education (FMOE), conducted the survey from February to July 2004.

Geographic coverage

National Coverage

Analysis unit

Individuals Households

Kind of data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure

The sample for the 2004 NDES is based on the sampling frame for the 2003 Nigeria DHS survey, which was designed to provide estimates of health and demographic indicators for the country as a whole, urban and rural areas, and six geo-political zones (hereafter referred to as regions). This discussion will first address the sample design for the 2003 Nigeria DHS survey, then the subsequent design for the 2004 NDES.

The 2003 Nigeria DHS sample points (clusters) were systematically selected from a list of enumeration areas (EAs) defined in the 1991 Population Census. A total of 365 clusters was drawn from the census sample frame. After selecting the 365 clusters, the NPC trained teams to conduct the comprehensive listing of households and to update maps in the selected clusters. Following the listing operation, households to be included in the 2003 Nigeria DHS survey were selected, with the number of households selected per cluster being inversely proportional to the size of the cluster. In the 2003 Nigeria DHS sampling frame, the number of households by region was disproportional to population size, in order to have adequate numbers of cases for reporting by region. For both the 2003 Nigeria DHS survey and the 2004 NDES, the sample was constructed to allow for separate estimates for key indicators in each of the six geo-political regions in Nigeria (North Central, North East, North West, South East, South South, and South West), with the result that the sample is not selfweighting at the national level.

Of the 365 clusters selected for the 2003 Nigeria DHS survey, 362 were successfully sampled. For the 2004 NDES, all of the 362 clusters completed for the 2003 Nigeria DHS survey were selected, and within those clusters, all households with children in the eligible child age range (4-16) were selected, comprising 4,563 households with one or more children age 4-16. Of these 362 clusters, 360 clusters were successfully completed for the 2004 NDES.

Sampling deviation

Of the 4,563 potential households selected, the 2004 NDES fieldwork teams successfully interviewed 4,268 households. The main reason that potential households were not interviewed was that the household had moved.

Mode of data collection

Face-to-face [f2f]

Research instrument

Four questionnaires were used for the 2004 NDES: 1. The Household Questionnaire 2. The Parent/Guardian Questionnaire 3. The Eligible Child Questionnaire 4. The Independent Child Questionnaire These are all available under Appendix D of the Survey Report available under External Resources.

The Household questionnaire listed all of the people who were members of the household at the time the household was surveyed during the 2003 Nigeria DHS survey. The three purposes of the 2004 NDES Household Questionnaire were to: - Confirm that the household was the same household surveyed by the 2003 Nigeria DHS survey; - Identify which children were eligible (qualified) to be covered by the Eligible Child Questionnaire and those eligible to have anthropometric and literacy/numeracy data collected about them; and - Identify a parent or guardian as the respondent for each eligible child. Children who were age 4-16 at the time of the 2003 Nigeria DHS survey were eligible to be covered by the Eligible Child Questionnaire. Children age 4-9 at the time of the 2003 Nigeria DHS survey had their height and weight measured, and children age 4-12 were given a literacy/numeracy test.

The Parent/Guardian Questionnaire collected background information on each parent/guardian respondent and on general education issues. Information was collected on the parent/guardian’s age, education, literacy, and religion. Questions were asked about the walking time and distance to the nearest primary and secondary schools, as well as household support of and participation in school activities. Parent/guardians were also asked about their views on school quality, the benefits and disadvantages of schooling, and reproductive health and HIV/AIDS education. In addition, information was collected on each primary school attended by the children for whom the parent/guardian responded, including the school type, location, and the reason for selection of that school.

The Eligible Child Questionnaire collected different kinds of information about each eligible child age 4-16, depending on the child’s schooling status. While the subject of the Eligible Child Questionnaire was the individual child and his/her schooling, the respondent for the questionnaire was the child’s parent/guardian, as the purpose of the questionnaire was to collect information on issues from the parent/guardian’s perspective. Data were collected on the following topics, according to a child’s schooling status: • Schooling background and participation during the 2003-2004 school year (attended school during the 2003-2004 school year, dropped out of school, or never attended school) • Frequency of and reasons for pupil absenteeism, household expenditures on schooling, and other costs of schooling (for children who attended school during the 2002-2003 school year) • Reasons for dropping out of school (for children who had dropped out of school) • Reasons for not attending school during the 2003-2004 school year (for children who had never attended school) • Children’s eating patterns

The Independent Child Questionnaire was used to interview directly a small percentage of the children age 13-16 in the selected households, rather than collecting information from a parent/guardian respondent. Independent children included those age 13-16 who were the head of the household, or the spouse of the head, or the son-in-law or daughter-in-law of the household head. Because these children did not have a parent/guardian who could answer questions about their schooling decisions, these children were interviewed directly. The same information was collected from these children themselves that otherwise would have been collected in the Eligible Child Questionnaire, and in terms of analysis, the data were grouped with data on other children in the eligible child age range.

The questionnaires were translated from English into three local languages—Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba. Pretest training and fieldwork took place from 22 September to 4 October, 2003. For this exercise, six interviewers were trained (two per local language). The questionnaires were tested in Awka and Nibo (in Anambra State), Ibadan (in Oyo State), and Kano (in Kano State) in all languages, including English.

Cleaning operations

All questionnaires for the NDES were returned to the NPC headquarters in Abuja for data processing. Data processing consisted of office editing, the coding of open-ended questions, data entry, verification, and correcting of the computer-identified errors. A team of two data entry supervisors, a questionnaire administrator, three office editors, and ten data entry clerks processed the data. Data entry and editing started in late February, using the computer package CSPro (Census and Survey Processing System), which was specifically designed to process data from large-scale household surveys of this type. Data tables were produced using CSPro.

Response rate

A total of 4,354 households were occupied, of which 4,268 were successfully interviewed, for an overall response rate of 98 percent. The household response rate was similar in urban and rural areas. In the interviewed households, 9,695 children were found and Eligible Child Questionnaires were completed for all of these children. In addition, 90 independent children were identified and interviews were completed with 81 of them, producing a response rate of 90 percent.

Sampling error estimates

The estimates from a sample survey are affected by two types of errors: (1)

Abstract

The 2007 Nigeria Enterprise Survey was part of the UK Department for International Development/World Bank Group Investment Climate Program (ICP) that was launched by the Minister of Finance in August 2007. This program was a response to the request from the Nigeria Federal Minister of Finance to the World Bank Group and UK Department for International Development (DFID) to assist in the development of a diagnostic base on which enterprise and investment climate constraints could be measured and benchmarked internally across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory of Nigeria and internationally against key comparator countries, particularly the "BRIC" countries (Brazil, Russia, India and China).

The survey was conducted between September 2007 and February 2008. Data from 2387 establishments was analyzed. The survey was administered across 11 states (Abia, Anambra, Abuja, Bauchi, Cross Rivers, Enugu, Kaduna, Kano, Lagos, Ogun and Sokoto) and included manufacturing and services firms of different sizes.

The objective of the Enterprise Surveys is to obtain feedback from companies in client countries on the state of the private sector as well as to help in building a panel of enterprise data that will make it possible to track changes in the business environment over time, thus allowing, for example, impact assessments of reforms. Through face-to-face interviews with firms in the manufacturing and services sectors, the survey assesses the constraints to private sector growth and creates statistically significant business environment indicators that are comparable across countries.

The standard Enterprise Survey topics include firm characteristics, gender participation, access to finance, annual sales, costs of inputs/labor, workforce composition, bribery, licensing, infrastructure, trade, crime, competition, capacity utilization, land and permits, taxation, informality, business-government relations, innovation and technology, and performance measures. Over 90% of the questions objectively ascertain characteristics of a country’s business environment. The remaining questions assess the survey respondents’ opinions on what are the obstacles to firm growth and performance.

Geographic coverage

National

Analysis unit

The primary sampling unit of the study is the establishment. An establishment is a physical location where business is carried out and where industrial operations take place or services are provided. A firm may be composed of one or more establishments. For example, a brewery may have several bottling plants and several establishments for distribution. For the purposes of this survey an establishment must make its own financial decisions and have its own financial statements separate from those of the firm. An establishment must also have its own management and control over its payroll.

Universe

The whole population, or the universe, covered in the Enterprise Surveys is the non-agricultural economy. It comprises: all manufacturing sectors according to the ISIC Revision 3.1 group classification (group D), construction sector (group F), services sector (groups G and H), and transport, storage, and communications sector (group I). Note that this population definition excludes the following sectors: financial intermediation (group J), real estate and renting activities (group K, except sub-sector 72, IT, which was added to the population under study), and all public or utilities sectors.

Kind of data

Sample survey data [ssd]

Sampling procedure

The sample includes 2387 establishments: 1891 enterprises have at least 5 full-time employees and 496 are micro establishments with less than 5 full-time workers.

The sample for enterprises with more than four employees was designed using stratified random sampling with strata defined by region, sector and firm size.

Establishments located in 11 states - Abia, Anambra, Abuja, Bauchi, Cross Rivers, Enugu, Kaduna, Kano, Lagos, Ogun and Sokoto - were interviewed.

Following the ISIC (revision 3.1) classification, the following industries were targeted: all manufacturing sectors (group D), construction (group F), retail and wholesale services (subgroups 52 and 51 of group G), hotels and restaurants (group H), transport, storage, and communications (group I), and computer and related activities (sub-group 72 of group K). For establishments with five or more full-time permanent paid employees, this universe was stratified according to the following categories of industry: 1. Manufacturing: Food and Beverages (Group D, sub-group 15); 2. Manufacturing: Garments (Group D, sub group 18); 3. Manufacturing: Other Manufacturing (Group D excluding sub-groups 15 and 18); 4. Retail Trade: (Group G, sub-group 52); 5. Rest of the universe, including: • Construction (Group F); • Wholesale trade (Group G, sub-group 51); • Hotels, bars and restaurants (Group H); • Transportation, storage and communications (Group I); • Computer related activities (Group K, sub-group 72).

Size stratification was defined following the standardized definition used for the Enterprise Surveys: small (5 to 19 employees), medium (20 to 99 employees), and large (more than 99 employees). For stratification purposes, the number of employees was defined on the basis of reported permanent full-time workers.

The sampling frame of establishments with 5 employees and more was built with lists sourced from the Nigeria Manufacturer Association, the National Bureau of Statistics in Abia, Anambra, Abuja, Cross River, Enugu, Kaduna, Lagos, the ministry of commerce and industry in Ogun, Kano, Bauchi, and from the Abuja Business Directory, the Sokoto Business Directory. This master list was used to set the target sample size for each stratum. During the survey period, the list was updated as new information regarding establishments that had closed or were out-of-scope was gathered. The final population size in all strata and locations was 771018 with the vast majority of establishments operating in the micro and manufacturing strata. The sample (including the entire rest of universe and retail sample in each state) was selected at random from the master list by a computer program.

In this survey, the micro establishment stratum covers all establishments of the targeted categories of economic activity with less than 5 employees. The implementing agency (EEC Canada) selected an aerial sampling approach to estimate the population of establishments and select the sample in this stratum for all states of the survey.

First, to randomly select individual micro establishments for surveying, the following procedure was followed: i) select districts and specific zones of each district where there was a high concentration of micro establishments; ii) count all micro establishments in these specific zones; iii) based on this count, create a virtual list and select establishments at random from that virtual list; and iv) based on the ratio between the number selected in each specific zone and the total population in that zone, create and apply a skip rule for selecting establishments in that zone.

The districts and the specific zones were selected at first according to local sources. The EEC team then went in the field to verify the sources and to count micro establishments. Once the count for each zone was completed, the numbers were sent back to EEC head office in Montreal.

At the head office, the count by zone was converted into one list of sequential numbers for the whole survey region, and a computer program performed a random selection of the determined number of establishments from the list. Then, based on the number that the computer selected in each specific zone, a skip rule was defined to select micro establishments to survey in that zone. The skip rule for each zone was sent back to the EEC field team.

In Nigeria, enumerators were sent to each zone with instructions how to apply the skip rule defined for that zone as well as how to select replacements in the event of a refusal or other cause of non-participation.

Mode of data collection

Face-to-face [f2f]

Research instrument

The current survey instruments are available: - Core Questionnaire + Manufacturing Module [ISIC Rev.3.1: 15-37] - Core Questionnaire + Retail Module [ISIC Rev.3.1: 52] - Core Questionnaire [ISIC Rev.3.1: 45, 50, 51, 55, 60-64, 72] - Micro Establishments Questionnaire (for establishments with 1 to 4 employees).

The "Core Questionnaire" is the heart of the Enterprise Survey and contains the survey questions asked of all firms across the world. There are also two other survey instruments - the "Core Questionnaire + Manufacturing Module" and the "Core Questionnaire + Retail Module." The survey is fielded via three instruments in order to not ask questions that are irrelevant to specific types of firms, e.g. a question that relates to production and nonproduction workers should not be asked of a retail firm. In addition to questions that are asked across countries, all surveys are customized and contain country-specific questions. An example of customization would be including tourism-related questions that are asked in certain countries when tourism is an existing or potential sector of economic growth.

The survey topics include firm characteristics, gender participation, access to finance, annual sales, costs of inputs/labor, workforce composition, bribery, licensing, infrastructure, trade, crime, competition, capacity utilization, land and permits, taxation, informality, business-government relations, innovation and technology, registration, and performance measures. The questionnaire also assesses the survey respondents' opinions on