According to the current development trajectory (Current Path), Nigeria is currently about to have a population explosion. The population is likely to increase from about 200 million in 2019 to over 200 million by 2050.
At that point, Nigeria will be the third most populous country globally, after India and China.
Family planning has been advised as a way to slow down this increase in population.
Recall that in 2018, the Federal Government declared that it was working hard to come out with a policy that would limit the number of children that a mother could have in Nigeria.
It added that this was one of the “major problems” in the Federal Government’s Economic Recovery and Growth Plan and that traditional chiefs and other national leaders were being consulted about it.
The Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed, who disclosed this while responding to questions during a session at the 24th Nigerian Economic Summit in Abuja, noted that the country’s population had been identified as one of the great challenges confronting the successful implementation of the ERGP.
She said, “We have been engaging traditional rulers and other leaders. Specifically, we have found out that to be able to address one of the great challenges that we identified in the ERGP, which is the growth in our population, we need to engage these institutions.
“And we hope that with their support, we will get to a point where we can come out with the policy that limits the number of children that a mother can have because that is important for sustaining our growth.”
What are your thoughts on this? Do you think Nigerians should be told the number of kids to have?
See the video below for reactions.
