This paper is a contribution to the debate about the impact of Nigeria’s growing population on the country’s development. With a population that already exceeds 130 million people and growing at roughly 3 per cent annually, a considerable proportion of the nation’s resources are consumed instead of accumulated for development purposes. In effect, the paper empirically tests the association between population growth and economic development in Nigeria between 1980 and 2003 and found that growth in population outweighs that of output and this has hindered the capacity of successive governments to efficiently provide social services to the people, thereby negatively affecting development. Our contention, therefore, is that curbs on population growth through appropriate policies that would integrate the country’s population programmers into the mainstream development efforts are necessary. That way, higher per capita consumption of social services by the citizens would be facilitated and which ultimately would boost their access to the benefits of development.