I read comments on the piece on addressable market where some are disputing the total population of Nigeria. Simply, people do not think Nigeria has up to 200 million here. Personally, I actually think the population of Nigeria is more than 200 million! I stopped using 180 million after INEC, the electoral umpire, published the total number of registered voters for the 2019 general election.
The total number of registered voters stands at 84 million, 15 million more than the figure in 2015 which stood at 68 million. In 2015, Lagos and Kano States also had the highest registered voters with 5.8 million and 4.9 million respectively.
Yes, according to INEC, 84 million people registered through biometric systems for the 2019 election. Though there are imperfections, you need to be at least 18 years to register for election voting in Nigeria. So, these 84 million people were at least 18 years old. Also, I personally think Nigeria does not exceed 70% participation on registered voters within the qualified population. This implies that in the whole population, 18 years and above should be around 120 million people.
Many independent data have shown that Nigeria has 44% of its population between 0-15 years. If you extrapolate to 18 years, you will have about 52% of the population below 18 years – let us just keep it at 50%.
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Based on above, doubling 120 million will give you 240 million people. Keeping it at 200 million takes care of many issues but saying that Nigerian population is not up to 200 million may not be smart especially with INEC data which was built with biometrics.
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