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The Group Director of Advocates for Positive Development (APD), March Oyinki, in his review of Nigeria 2024 Global Performance Index in Life Expectancy WDI, in the April 2025 edition of the APD Bulletin, attributed the country’s poor life expectancy rating to poor health and sanitation policies, and ineffective implementation strategies by the federal government.
The World Health Organization (WHO) describes life expectancy as the average number of years that a newborn could expect to live, if he or she were to pass through life exposed to the sex- and age-specific death rates prevailing at the time of his or her birth, for a specific year, in a given country, territory, or geographic area.
Life expectancy is an indicator often used to illustrate socio-economic development across countries. Life expectancy at birth is an indicator of the overall mortality in the population of a country. The life expectancy at birth based on the latest United Nations Population Division estimates in 201 countries in 2025 is 73.5 years averagely, a 0.23% increase from 2024, which was 73.3 years.
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Results Framework defines the necessities of life in terms of access to basic services and assistance in health, nutrition, Safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), food, shelter, energy, education, as well as domestic items and specialised services for people with specific needs.
The United Nations Population Division Life Expectancy Index shows that Asian countries have the longest lifespan. Hong Kong ranks 1 out of 201 countries with 82.97 years. Japan ranks 2 out of 201 countries with 81.83 years and South Korea ranked 3 out of 201 countries with 81.32 years. African countries are at the bottom of the Life Expectancy index. South Sudan ranked 199 out of 201 countries with 57.85 years, followed by Chad 200 out of 201 with 55.43 years, and Nigeria is at the bottom of the table, ranked 201 out of 201 countries with 54.78 years.
WHO attributes the shortening of life in Nigeria to several factors and major amongst them is the quality of air we breathe. The impact of air pollution on life expectancy in the country is greater than that of HIV/AIDS. The effect of air pollution is almost the same as malaria, unsafe drinking water and environmental sanitation combined.
Several efforts have been made by the federal government to improve life expectancy in an attempt to attain its 70-year life expectancy projection by 2025. These policy objectives of the government are focused on the rehabilitation of the health sector through several intervention programmes, which include primary health care (PHC) services intended to improve life expectancy.
In addition, the commercialization policy was introduced to significantly increase efficiency in the public health sector. The National Health Insurance Scheme (NHIS) was also initiated by the Ministry of Health to enable the affordability of healthcare services and improve healthcare monetary policies.
Evidently, the current life expectancy in Nigeria is a far cry from the 2025 projection of the federal government. Indicative of the need to take a closer look at the possible encumbrances preventing the realization of the policy projections and to review the implementation strategies of the current policies framework or develop an entirely new one introducing innovative methodologies.
To ensure effective delivery of the UNHCR Results Framework of the necessities of life in terms of access to basic services and assistance in health, nutrition, Safe drinking water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), food, shelter, energy, education, as well as domestic items and specialised services for people with specific needs.
