Will Nigerian Boom Babies Feed Prosperity Or Entrench Poverty?

Africa's most populous country is often used to illustrate the "Africa Rising" narrative which urges investors to look beyond the continent's current troubles at the huge potential of its swelling youth population. But sceptics fear Nigeria's bloated cities, its poor infrastructure, education and job market have little chance of keeping up with a population growing at 2.4 percent a year. How Nigeria manages to cope with its rising population could determine whether it really will be Africa's superpower, or just slip deeper into poverty and civil strife.

 LAGOS, NIGERIA  (REUTERS) -  In the next five minutes, Nigeria will have added 35 people to its population, about 11,000 a day.

While some see these new consumers feeding an engine of prosperity, others fear they will create a crisis of poverty and unrest.By 2050, the global Population Reference Bureau (PRB) projects it will be the world's fourth most populous country, with 400 million people; just less than the projected figure for the United States but with only a tenth of its territory.

While Africa's most populous nation has long had business leaders salivating over its potentially huge market, especially retailers of fast moving consumer goods, it is not clear whether it can turn a growing population already at 170 million into a richer society with widespread higher living standards.

Nigeria is often used by promoters of an "Africa Rising" narrative urging investors to buy into the continent's potential to reap a "demographic dividend" from an expanding population of young people of working age.

Yet in the waterside slum of Makoko, where 100,000 residents huddle together in homes on stilts that spill right out into the Lagos Lagoon, few feel on the verge of prosperity.

The 8 US dollars a week that 55-year-old Elizabeth Mifokpo earns from roasting and selling fish helps feed her seven offspring and twelve grandchildren.

"I have been involved in this fish business for 25 years, this is what sustains my children and grandchildren. This is the only trade I know. My husband had two wives, when he died, we carried on with the fish business but three years after he passed on, the second wife died and I was left to take care of the kids and everything, even their schooling. It is this fish business that pays for their education," Elizabeth said.

The money she makes is not enough to cater for the education of all her children.

Demographers fear a crisis of poverty and social upheaval could offset gains from the birth of new consumers.

Sceptics say services and the environment cannot keep pace with a population rising at 2.4 percent a year, according to U.N. figures.

They fear swelling numbers of jobless and uneducated youths threaten the stability of a country already suffering an Islamist uprising in the north and oil theft, piracy and kidnapping by criminal gangs in the south.

Few investment funds share this view. Renaissance Capital believes African demographics will spur an economic transformation of the sort Asia has seen.

In a 2011 report entitled "The bottom billion becomes the fastest billion", the bank said a 15 to 20 percent growth in the crucial 15 to 24 age range over the coming decades will provide the plentiful labour force the world economy will rely on.

Nigeria is already a big market for goods, like soap, beer and flour. South African supermarket chain Shoprite has plans for 700 stores in Nigeria, up from only a handful at the moment.

Yet countries that reap the "demographic dividend" usually do so only once population growth starts to slow.

Sprawling around a lagoon and the Atlantic coast, Nigeria's commercial hub ofLagos - home to some 21 million people, receives hundreds of thousands of new arrivals each year from rural areas. The city grows by 672,000 people a year, state data shows.

"It looks like running to standstill because in many ways the state now becomes a victim of its own success because the more we do the more attractive this place becomes to you know migrants from other parts of the country and indeed parts of the West African region," said Ben Akabueze, the Lagos commissioner forEconomic Planning and Budget.

Two thirds of Lagos residents live in what are effectively slums with no reliable electricity or water.

Most crowd into "face me, face you" accommodation squeezing whole families into seven-square metre rooms (75 square feet) sandwiched together along thin corridors.

Year 5 student, Brandy Mifokpo is one of only two children in her family in school.

"We had nine children nine in my family, two died. From the remaining seven, there are only two of us going to school at the moment. I am the last child of my family. Since my father died, there has been no help from anywhere apart from my mother's business. I am schooling and I am fortunate to be among the children going to school in this kind of community and this environment where there is no father and my widowed mother training us and carrying the burden," she said.

The United Nations predicts sub-Saharan Africa's population will double by 2045 to 2 billion and Nigeria will account for a fifth of that.

The government has for decades tried to curb population growth through family planning, but struggles to influence a poorly educated population, many living in remote rural areas, that values having many children, officials say.

Bright Ekweremadu, director, Society for Family Health, a non governmental organisation in Nigeria says only 10 percent of the female population in the country use contraceptives.

"Only about 10 percent of women in Nigeria who are supposed to practise family planning or who are supposed to space their children are actually adopting the modern family planning methods. We have another three to four percent who are using the traditional methods so what I'm saying in effect is that the practice of child spacing in Nigeria is very very low compared to other many Africans," he said.

"We just keep... you know, working at it. I mean of course growing population means growing demand for infrastructure, growing demand for housing, for everything and sometimes the development of these infrastructure and other public services don't exactly keep pace with the rapid population growth," Ben Akabueze said.

Some 100 million Nigerians live in poverty.

Many analysts fear that if the population growth in the West African country does not slow down, it could lead to a collapse while others are of the view that as African countries get richer, birth rates will drop dramatically.