Chairman of the National Population Commission Eze Duruiheoma presented the figure at the Commission on Population and Development in New York.

He said the country was just two million people away from hitting that 200 million mark.

Mr Duruiheoma noted that at the last census in 2006 Nigeria's population was put at 140 million.

Just over a decade later, it is the seventh most-populous country in the world - and one in every 43 person in the world is Nigerian.

Nigeria is now projected to become the third most-populated country in the world in the next 30 years.

The UN has projected that it could overtake Pakistan, Brazil, Indonesia and the US by 2060 at the rate the country's population is growing.

Last month, the British High Commissioner to Nigeria, Paul Arkwright, warned there could be "a demographic disaster” in the making, especially as so many young people are jobless, lack access to education and the competition for resources.