Major Problems Facing Nigeria Today
The Federal Republic of Nigeria or Nigeria for short is a west African country located about 10 degrees north of the equator just at the western coast of Africa. The Federal Republic of Nigeria is the most populous country in all of Africa and the eighth most populous country in the world today. Nigeria has a total land area of about 924,000 squared kilometers about 1.5 percent of which is covered by water.
Nigeria has a total population of about 155 million people (followed by Ethiopia the second most populous country in Africa with about 86 million people) with the population growth rate around 2 percent.
Nigeria shares borders with the Republic of Niger in the North, the Republic of Cameroon and Chad in the east, the Republic of Benin in the west and the Atlantic Ocean (Gulf of Guinea) in the south.
Nigeria comprises of 36 different states with Abuja (Abuja has a total land area of about 713 squared kilometers and a population of about 900000 people) being the federal capital of Nigeria. Nigeria comprises of about 250 different ethnic groups with Igbo, Yoruba and Hausa being the three most dominant ethnic groups.
There are more than 550 different languages spoken in Nigeria today (according to history, Nigeria had about 1500 different languages most of which are dead due to outside influence) with English being the official language and Pigdin (broken English) being the street language.
Although just about 50% of the total population above age 15 can read and write English Language, almost the entire population do speak and understand pidgin(broken English) which helps a lot in communication especially on the streets.
Most African countries especially the English speaking countries such as Ghana also speak and understand pidgin which helps a lot in communication between these countries. Although not border neighbors, Ghana and Nigeria share a lot more in common than most other countries in Africa.
Nigeria is a very rich country in terms of natural resources and wildlife. Nigeria is an oil rich country and one of the leading oil exporters in the world today.
Despite the abundance of natural resources and the beauty of Nigeria, Nigeria has the largest poor population in Africa. Nigeria unlike Ghana or any other African country suffers the most from population explosion.
CORRUPTION, poor management of funds, political instability and poor governance continue to tear Nigeria apart. Nigeria is the most corrupt country in Africa with very high unemployment rates. Almost all political figures in Nigeria today engage themselves in corrupt activities leaving the people with nothing but poverty and despair.
Although Nigeria has many graduates, most of them end up on the streets with nothing at all to do after college. Most of these unemployed graduates engage themselves in online internet scam and fraud (popularly known as 419 business) just to survive.
Between 50-60 percent of the Nigerian population live below poverty line. Most people have given up on education because they find nothing useful to do with their degrees after college. These days you see children of school-going age roaming about on the streets doing petty trading.
About 3 to 5 million of the Nigerian population are living with HIV/AIDS and most children on the streets have lost either one or both parents to HIV/AIDS. Ethnic and religious conflicts especially between Muslims and Christians worsen the situation in certain parts of Nigeria today. Local terrorist groups such as the famous Boko Haram (which means western education is evil) continues to terrorize innocent people especially in the north.
Nigeria also remains one of the malaria killing zones in Africa. Bacterial and protozoal diarrhea, yellow fever, sleeping sickness, etc. continue to threaten several lives in Nigeria today.