1in8B › Odds by country › Nigeria

If you were born in Nigeria

1 in 18 babies on Earth is born in Nigeria, about 7.56 million a year. If your birthplace were drawn by lot, you would be born here with a chance of 1 in 18. Below is what awaits a child born here, according to the statistics, and three lives lived here in the game.

What stands out here

People here live 18.9 years less than the world average: 54.6 years against 73.5 years.
12 in 100 children here die before age five, 3.1 times the world average.
The World Bank classes it as a lower-middle-income country. There are 46 such countries, and 46 in 100 of the world’s babies are born in them.
Women here have 4.4 children on average; the world average is 2.2.
Life expectancy here is among the ten lowest in the world.
Child mortality here is among the ten highest in the world.
Maternal mortality is among the ten highest in the world: 993 per 100,000 births.

The odds in numbers

Indicator	Nigeria	World
Births a year	7,560,454	132,315,943
Chance of being born here	1 in 18	—
Life expectancy, men	54.3 years	71 years
Life expectancy, women	54.9 years	75.9 years
Die before age 1, per 100 children	7	2.8
Die before age 5, per 100 children	12	3.7
Die between ages 15 and 60, per 100 men	35	17
Die between ages 15 and 60, per 100 women	34	11
Maternal deaths per 100,000 births	993	187
Children per woman	4.4	2.2
GDP per person a year, at purchasing power parity	$9,530	$25,400
Income inequality, Gini index (0–100)	33.9	—
Can read and write, per 100 adults	70	86
Average years of schooling, adults	7.6 years	8.4 years
University enrolment, gross ratio (can exceed 100)	10	48
Married before 18, per 100 young women	33	16
Live in cities, per 100	64	58
Work in farming, per 100 workers	34	27
Working or looking for work, per 100 women	81	48
Living with HIV, per 100 adults aged 15–49	1.2	0.7
Homicides per 100,000 people a year	15.7	4.8
Road deaths per 100,000 people a year	17.2	15
Suicides per 100,000 people a year	5	9.1
Use tobacco, per 100 adults	3.1	20
Born in another country, per 100 residents	0.6	3.7
Life evaluation, 0 to 10	4.8	5.4

“World” is the average weighted by population, and by births for child and maternal mortality. ≈ marks an estimate: there is no published figure for this country.

Three lives lived here in the game

This is how the life of a child born in Nigeria could turn out. The game lived 20 lives on its own, with no player, by this country’s numbers. Here are three of them: one of the shortest, the middle one and one of the longest.

Maryam Suleiman
Born in 2026 in rural Nigeria, into a family of modest means. Education: lower secondary school. 35 years of work, last as care worker. Married. 1 child. Age at death: 51 years. Cause: cancer.
Abimbola Adeoye
Born in 2026 in a small town, Nigeria, into one of the richest families. Education: finished school. 52 years of work. Married. Age at death: 70 years. Cause: a stroke.
Emmanuel Bakare
Born in 2026 in rural Nigeria, into a well-off family. Education: primary school. 46 years of work. Moved to the United Kingdom. Divorced. 1 child. 2 grandchildren. Age at death: 84 years. Cause: a heart attack.

These people are made up, and three lives are not statistics. The real numbers are in the table above.

You cannot pick a country in 1in8B: the draw decides. This one comes up with a chance of 1 in 18.

Be born

Other countries

Data: the UN, the World Bank (release of October 8, 2026), WHO, UNICEF, UNESCO, the ILO and the World Happiness Report. Where the numbers come from and what in the game is real