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By Ugo Inyama
In Nigeria, time itself seems unequal. For the rich, the clock ticks gently, granting decades of comfort. For the poor, it races toward an early grave. The average Nigerian can expect to live just 55 years ,one of the lowest figures on earth and the lowest in West Africa outside war-torn nations. Ghanaians live to 64, South Africans to 65, and Britons to 81.
For a land overflowing with oil, minerals, talent, and promise, this is a haunting verdict. Millions are dying years, sometimes decades, before their time. Poverty, poor healthcare, hunger, pollution, corruption, and insecurity form a chain around our necks, making early death almost ordinary and that is the tragedy. Life expectancy is the simplest measure of a nation’s worth, and by that measure Nigeria stands condemned.
A Gamble from Birth
In Nigeria, to be born is to take a gamble. More than 70 infants die for every 1,000 live births ,thirty times the rate in Norway or Japan. Most perish from ailments that should not kill a child today: malaria, pneumonia, diarrhoea, or complications at birth.
For mothers, childbirth is a battlefield. Nigeria accounts for 12 per cent of global maternal deaths. A Nigerian woman is hundreds of times more likely to die giving birth than her European counterpart. Those who survive infancy inherit new enemies such as hunger, unsafe drinking water, collapsing hospitals, joblessness, and insecurity. From cradle to coffin, survival becomes a negotiation with fate.
Poverty as a Death Sentence
Poverty in Nigeria is not just an economic condition; it is a slow form of execution. Over 130 million Nigerians live in multidimensional poverty, stripped of food, healthcare, education, and shelter.
When poverty becomes normal, health becomes a privilege. A farmer in Benue earning ₦1,500 a day cannot afford a malaria test. A mother in Zamfara must choose between food and antibiotics for her child. People die quietly not because their diseases are incurable, but because their lives are unaffordable.
Even where hospitals exist, they are half-alive. Doctors strike, nurses emigrate, and equipment rusts. X-ray machines gather dust while patients wait in prayer. In Nigeria, illness is not just a condition it is most likely a death sentence.
A Broken Healthcare System
To understand why Nigerians die young, follow the money or the lack of it. Year after year, government allocates barely five per cent of the national budget to health, far below the 15 per cent Abuja Declaration commitment.
Primary healthcare centres , the first line of defence stand empty, roofless, or locked. Rural clinics lack power, water, and drugs. Ambulances rarely arrive, vaccinations falter, and emergency care is often a rumour rather than a service.
Meanwhile, the wealthy fly to London, Dubai, and Delhi for treatment. In 2024 alone, Nigerians spent over $1.6 billion on medical tourism, money that could have built world-class hospitals at home.
But inequality goes beyond hospitals. The rich buy safety and survival: private hospitals when public ones fail, private security when policing collapses, and private jets or chartered flights to avoid deadly highways. A stomach ache in Ikoyi is treated in a luxury clinic; the same pain in Kebbi becomes a funeral after days of waiting in a clinic without oxygen.
Here, survival depends on class: the rich buy time, health, and safety; the poor pray, endure, and hope to see tomorrow.
Environmental Hazards and Urban Chaos
Our cities, once symbols of modern life, have become slow-motion death traps. Lagos and Port Harcourt now rival Beijing and Delhi in air pollution. The World Bank estimates that over 100,000 Nigerians die annually from pollution-related causes more than from malaria and HIV combined.
In the Niger Delta, gas flares poison the air and water. In the North, the desert creeps south, swallowing farms and livelihoods. Across the South, floods sweep away homes and futures each year. Add chaotic traffic, slums, and mountains of waste, and the miracle is not that Nigerians die young ,it is that so many survive at all.
The Food and Nutrition Crisis
The path to a long life begins with food, yet millions of Nigerians eat to stay alive, not to stay healthy. Over 33 million face acute hunger, and nearly half of all child deaths are linked to malnutrition.
Protein deficiency stunts both body and mind. The poor survive on starch meals that fill the belly but starve the cells. Rising food prices force families to skip meals, sometimes for days. A nation that cannot nourish its children cannot secure its future. When nutrition fails, the body becomes defenceless and life expectancy collapses.
The Way Forward
Nigeria’s short life expectancy is not a curse but a consequence of choices. We built it through decades of neglect, and we can undo it through decisive reforms.
Health must become a national priority. Every local government needs a functioning healthcare centre. Preventive care vaccination, maternal health, nutrition programmes must replace emergency reactions.
Poverty reduction is health reform. Clean water, jobs, housing, and electricity extend life as surely as medicine. Environmental justice is health justice: air, water, and soil must no longer be silent killers. Enforcing environmental laws and investing in renewable energy can add years to our national lifespan.
Above all, leadership must rediscover urgency and empathy. Governance is not measured by roads or speeches but by how long and how well citizens live. A nation that cannot keep its people alive has already failed them.
Conclusion
A nation’s greatness is not measured by GDP or skyscrapers, but by the average breath of its people. Nigeria has normalised the deaths of mothers in labour, children from fever, and elders from neglect.
We cannot build prosperity on shallow graves. Extending Nigeria’s life expectancy by just ten years would mean millions more workers, parents, and innovators driving national growth. It would mean choosing life over mere survival.
Nigeria must decide: remain a country where the young die too soon, or become a nation where longevity is not a privilege but a promise kept to every citizen.
*Ugo Inyama writes from African Digital Governance Centre, Manchester
www.Africandgc.org
