How many Nigerians are there?
Censuses are one of Nigeria’s many live-wires. The country has not held one since 2006 and as I have documented extensively elsewhere, Nigeria’s census numbers simply follow an old pattern in the way the final numbers are distributed.
My opinion has always been that the overall numbers are broadly correct i.e. there were something like 140 million Nigerian in 2006 as the census said but how exactly they were distributed across Nigeria is anyone’s guess. These days, Nigeria’s population is estimated at somewhere in the region of 220 million people. But there are many many Nigerians who disagree with estimates like that in the strongest terms.
What do such people think is Nigeria’s real population? Most people can’t say for sure but they will usually say it’s much lower than 200 million. I can sympathise — it can be difficult to understand how a country of more than 200 million people generates so little economic activity. To worsen matters, the census that was to be held in May 2023 has predictably been kicked into the long grass by the outgoing government (the surprise would have been if it had held).
Whenever the census is held, I think it will tell us that there are more than 200 million Nigerians for sure. There are simply a lot of Nigerians wherever you look. But one other way to think about this is the sheer number of Nigerians trying to leave the country. Anytime a visa opportunity in a western country is opened up or loosened, Nigerians quickly show up significantly in the numbers.
Post-Brexit, the UK’s migration numbers have shot up to record levels with a lot more people coming to the country from outside the EU. Here’s one quote from a recent story in The Times(£):
For more recent years, we can get a clearer picture of who moved here for work during free movement by looking at the number of national insurance numbers handed out. In 2005 — the first full year after accession — Poland topped the list with 145,000 visas, followed by India (43,000), Lithuania (29,000) and Slovakia (25,000). In 2022, however, the top countries were India (257,000), Ukraine (103,000), Nigeria (102,000) and Pakistan (54,000).
Ukraine can be explained by the fact that the country is at war and the UK has liberalised visas for people fleeing the country. But India is now the most populous country in the world and Pakistan is estimated to be comfortably over 200 million people.
Here is another quote from the same paper, this time on student visas(£):
In the year to June, 34,031 Nigerians were given study visas in the UK. They brought a total of 31,898 dependants with them, according to Home Office figures. A similar ratio was recorded for work visas, with the 8,972 Nigerians issued with a work visa in the 12 months bringing with them 8,576 dependants.
In contrast there were 114,837 Chinese students who came to the UK last year, bringing with them a total of 401 dependants.
Indians had a higher ratio, with 93,049 students coming with 24,916 dependants. However, Indians who came to the UK on work visas brought in an average of one dependant per person.
The United States has no obvious immigration path for Nigerians outside of family reunions and work visas. But looking at the 2022 immigration numbers from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) (opens excel spreadsheet) sees Nigerians showing up in relatively high numbers. Just over 12,000 Nigerians obtained lawful permanent residency in the US in 2022 with over 4,000 of them being new arrivals into the country. This is close to the number for Pakistan at over 11,000 people in total and a country on the other side of the world like Nigeria.
These days Nigerians are even turning up in Romania per a recent article in The Economist(£):
Romania’s economy has been growing steadily for a decade, last year by 4.7%. In 2010 GDP per person, adjusted for prices, was 53% of the EU average; by 2021 it was 74%. Meanwhile the population shrank from 23.2m in 1990 to 19m today. Birth rates collapsed after the revolution of 1989, and millions have emigrated. The country now faces severe labour shortages.
The afternoon queue outside Bucharest’s immigration office is long. Nikky, a Nigerian nanny, says she would ideally like to work in Britain, but would rather live legally here than illegally there
None of this is scientific but it’s a useful approach, I think. If you think the various estimates of Nigeria’s population are too high, it is worth considering why Nigerians show up in large numbers in the migration numbers of other countries.
As I said earlier — I think there are more than 200 million Nigerians in the country. I just don’t know whereabouts in the country they are.