With the country’s over-bloated population, experts have advised that the nation needed to strategically implement effective people-oriented programmes that would stem the tide of the negative impact of population explosion on her resources and stability.
This advice is coming after experts on World Population Day shared insights which showed that the little resources apportioned for a certain number of people in the country were being stretched to more people numbering millions.
Consequently, the large population is swiftly stagnating future development and advancement of the country. The Development Communications (DevComs) Programme Director, Mr. Akin Jimoh, made this known.
His words: “Nigeria’s rising population remains a threat to the country’s economic and social development 25 years after the historic International Conference on Population and Development (ICPD).”
While Jimoh beckoned on all Nigerians to celebrate this year’s WPD with the theme, ‘25 Years of ICPD: Accelerating the Promise’, he urged the ICPD to act for the betterment of her compatriots.
Now, the ICPD was an inaugural meeting held in Cairo in 1994. There, 179 governments, including Nigeria, adopted a revolutionary programme of action and called for women’s reproductive health and rights to take centre stage in national and global development efforts.
Interestingly, Nigeria had her population as 105.4million in 1994. 25 years after (2019), the country’s population has doubled that figure with over 200 million people, equivalent to 2.6% of the total world population.
Sadly, however, the Devcoms boss affirmed that Nigeria remains a leading cause of population explosion. She ranks as the seventh most populous nation in the world and first in Africa.
Jimoh spoke further: “There is need to support the National Population Commission (NPoPC) to reflect, on the best ways to solve the issue of population explosion in the country, 25 years after the ICPD.”
In his advice, he suggested that the government needed to place population management at the front burner of its policy making and allocation of resources, especially investment in programmes like family planning services.
He described family planning as an essential tool to be prioritised and invested in. “It will help the government save money that can be invested in other development programmes like education, health, job creation among others”.
In her reaction to the danger the nation’s economy is faced with, the Programme Officer (Communications), DevComs, Fausiat Balogun agitated that the government needed to fulfill the youth declaration drafted by young people themselves.
“The youths had demanded the government took action to create three million jobs each year for young people, tackle corruption, healthcare, education, gender discrimination and agriculture,” she recalled.
Listing part of their demands as: the government should make investments and policies that unlock the potential of young Nigerians, Balogun is certain that it would help significantly to harness the demographic dividend.
“Besides, it will also help avoid a population disaster, especially as young people are currently more than half of the population”, she decried.
For the Communication expert and family planning advocate, if the actions listed would be taken, the issue of mental health instability, drug abuse and other social vices among young people would also be curbed if not totally eradicated.
Having pointed out ICPD promise, youth declaration, she expressed, “Accelerating the ICPD promise on some issues is paramount as they remain unresolved till now”.
Accordingly, Balogun continued that such ubresolved issue could mean a renewed promise of ‘Leaving no one behind’ by harnessing demographic dividend and building inclusive and just societies.
She succinctly puts, “Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) remains unacceptably high. Modern Contraceptive Rate (MCR) remains unacceptably low while sexual violence is on the increase.”
She, therefore, maintained that the country had a long way to go as she gave a balm. “We need to start by managing our population strategically and critically now”.
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