Will Nigeria’s booming population lead it to prosperity or poverty?

Nigeria is a reasonable guess since, with 224 million people, it’s Africa’s most populous country. Thanks in part to modest health-care advances, infant mortality has decreased to 72 deaths per thousand live births and life expectancy has inched up to 53 years (though both these figures still fall far below UN goals). Those and other factors, combined with traditions favoring large families, have created one of the world’s fastest growing populations. By 2050—when Eziaku will be 28 years old—Nigeria, with just about one-tenth the land of the United States, is projected to hold 377 million people, becoming the planet’s third most populous nation, just ahead of the U.S. and behind only India and China.