Six Jobs Seeking a Sixth Sense Against Nigeria's Skyrocketing Population

Figure 1: Six Jobs Seeking a Sixth Sense against Nigeria's Skyrocketing Population: Source - Dr. Adetolu Ademujimi, Sartorius Resources, 2026

I may not know when the next population & housing census in Nigeria will be conducted but I surely know that my country needs more than just counting our numbers. I once wrote in a past publication about my conviction: “that population census without a procreation censure is a popularized carelessness – or senselessness, of the world’s poverty capital called Nigeria”. When I imagine that the Nigeria Revenue Service has a 2026 revenue target of forty trillion naira, which is a trivial 27 billion US Dollars for an estimated population of 230 million people and compare it with Brazil’s revenue of one trillion US dollars in 2025 for a 213 million population, I become terrified.

My country’s poor socioeconomic indices scare me to think critically of the astronomical increase in these six occupations among both the educated and uneducated youths as our population growth becomes alarming.

1.    1. Commercial motorcycle & tricycle operators (called Okada & Keke riders)

2.    2. Cart-pushers (called Mei ruwas)

3.    3. Chancers (called gamblers or bettors)

4.    4. Commercial sex workers (called Oloshos)

5.    5. Cyber fraudsters (called Yahoo boys & girls)

6.    6. Captors (both as kidnappers & ritual killers)

Frankly, what comes to your mind? The first three are openly done while the last three are discreet employments. However, numbers 4 & 5 appear to be gaining popularity and acceptance among Nigerian youths daily, such that they are transitioning from secretive engagements to bare-faced conduct.  

I have since realized that our uncontrolled birth rate produces new Nigerians at a rate that is higher than the development of efficient roads, waste management, water, and other critical infrastructure systems by Federal, State, and Local Governments. Therefore,  I believe that individual Nigerian families can significantly reduce their economic challenges by intentionally embracing population control over and above their religious, cultural, and political sentiments that influence the majority’s reproductive decisions.

Don’t get me wrong – Okada riders and cart pushers, for instance, help to bridge the gap of transportation of humans and other essential materials in a country with poor public amenities. However, let’s remember that Nigeria’s poor socioeconomic outlook can be likened to a burst water pipe. An efficient control of the situation requires not only buying plenty of mopsticks & evacuation bowls, or hiring several cleaners to evacuate the water. It actually involves reaching out to the control tap to either significantly reduce or stop further pumping of water from the source, allowing the engineer or plumber a good operating field to repair the leakage.

As Nigeria dangerously competes to become the 3^rd most populated country in the world by 2050, please look behind the several skyscrapers within Abuja and Lagos, and you’ll see the litany of slums occupied by millions of young Nigerians, many of whom their distressed parents pushed out to the streets at early ages perhaps because they had too many children that they could not feed. Unfortunately, these young ones are daily applying for the six menial and criminal jobs discussed in this publication.

As a remedy, can policymakers at national & state levels suspend their individual religious and ethnic biases to revolutionize Nigeria’s reproductive health programmes? Can we place as much emphasis & political will on population control through family planning services as we give to the promotion of safe deliveries and reduction of maternal mortality? Can we further drive down the Total fertility Rate, which is the average number of children that a woman will have in her lifetime, to lower than the current five? Can President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the 36 State Governors, bureaucrats, traditional rulers, religious leaders, civil society organizations and the media, form a critical mass to deploy the urgent sixth sense needed to rise above our religious, cultural, and political sentiments about population control to toe the line of China, whose state council unveiled a revolutionary family planning guideline in 1973, that encouraged couples to have a maximum of two children, with a four-year gap between the pair?.  Can we do all these and more to prevent the disastrous outcomes of an over-populated country, which includes the skyrocketing population of okada riders, cart-pushers, gamblers, Oloshos, yahoo boys & girls and kidnappers. I so submit!

My name is Adetolu Ademujimi, a Development Consultant, Medical Doctor, Healthcare Finance Specialist, Author, Reformer, Public Policy expert, and social entrepreneur, who can be reached in Abuja at adetoluademujimi@gmail.com. You can also visit my website www.adetoluademujimi.com.

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