In a political landscape often marked by rhetoric and evasive promises, it is rare to hear a voice speak with both clarity and urgency about one of Nigeria’s most critical shortcomings: its refusal to identify itself.
That voice, this time, belongs to Senator Victor Umeh, the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Population. At a recent public unveiling of the 2025 edition of the State of the World Population report in Abuja, Umeh made a plea that every patriotic Nigerian should echo: that the federal government must take urgent steps to conduct a national population and housing census.
It is not the first time such a call has been made. But Umeh’s framing was compelling. He reminded us that Nigeria continues to rely on assumptions about its population size, with estimates ranging from 200 million to 230 million, and no verifiable data to support them.
