Population and Settlement

What you need to know

• Population density is the average number of people per unit area, found by dividing total population by total land area in square kilometres. Density tells you crowding; distribution tells you where people are spread and where they are not.
• Nigeria's 2006 census returned 140,431,790 people over about 923,768 square kilometres, giving an average density of roughly 152 persons per square kilometre, but the national average hides enormous variation.
• Areas of high density in Nigeria include the Lagos and Ibadan belt, the Anambra and Imo region, Kano and its close settled zone, the Jos Plateau and parts of Akwa Ibom. Areas of low density include the Chad Basin, the middle Niger and Benue troughs, the Mambilla and Adamawa highlands and much of Taraba and the Niger Delta swamps.
• The physical factors behind distribution are relief, soil fertility, rainfall, water supply, mineral deposits and disease. Rugged relief, poor laterite soils, tsetse-infested valleys and swamp discourage settlement, while fertile plains and reliable water attract it.
• The human factors are history, government policy, transport, industry, security and religion. The historic Hausa walled cities, the Yoruba tradition of large towns, oil in the Delta, the creation of Abuja as the Federal Capital, and insurgency in the north east have all moved people.
• A census is the official counting of all people in a country at a stated time, and it collects age, sex, occupation, education and household data. Nigeria's National Population Commission has conducted counts in 1952 to 1953, 1963, 1973, 1991 and 2006, with several of those disputed or cancelled.
• Census data is used for planning schools, hospitals, roads and water supply, for revenue allocation, for delimiting constituencies, for the national budget and for business investment. Nigerian censuses face problems of illiteracy, poor road access, fear of taxation, religious objection, political inflation of figures, inadequate funding and insecurity.
• Population growth comes from natural increase, which is births minus deaths, plus net migration. Nigeria's growth rate of about 2.5 per cent a year is driven by a high birth rate from early marriage, polygamy, the desire for large families and low contraceptive use, set against a falling death rate from better medical care and immunisation.
• A high birth rate produces a broad-based population pyramid with a large young dependent population, which means heavy pressure on schools, housing, food and jobs, and a high dependency ratio carried by the working-age group.
• Migration is the movement of people from one place to another to settle. Push factors drive people out: unemployment, poor social amenities, low farm income, land shortage, insecurity, flooding. Pull factors draw them in: jobs, schools, hospitals, electricity, higher wages, bright city lights.
• Rural to urban migration dominates in Nigeria and produces two problems at once. The village loses its young able-bodied labour, so farms are left to the elderly and food output falls, while the city gains more people than its housing, water, power and job market can carry.
• A settlement is nucleated when buildings cluster around a central point such as a market, mosque or crossroads; dispersed when scattered in isolated compounds over farmland; and linear when strung out along a road, river or railway. Site is the actual ground a settlement is built on; situation is its position in relation to other places.
• Settlements are classified by function: administrative such as Abuja, commercial such as Onitsha and Aba, industrial such as Ikeja and Nnewi, mining such as Jos and Enugu, educational such as Nsukka and Zaria, port such as Apapa and Calabar, and religious such as Ile-Ife and Sokoto.
• The problems of Nigerian urbanisation are housing shortage and slums such as Ajegunle and Makoko, traffic congestion, unemployment and underemployment, crime, pressure on water and electricity, poor waste disposal, flooding from blocked drains, and air pollution. Solutions include provincial industrial growth, rural electrification and road building to slow migration, mass housing schemes, mass transit, and enforcement of planning laws.