Opinion
Population Census Without Procreation Censure: Popularized Carelessness Of The Poverty Capital
While I approve of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration’s launch in February 2022 of a Revised National Policy on Population for Sustainable Development, I disapprove of the Federal Government’s unsaid words and unconcealed inactions about population matters. Short of being seen as an alarmist, doesn’t it smack off deep concern that the Federal Government of Nigeria’s 2022 budget includes N177.33 billion for the long-awaited population and housing census (last done in 2006) to be conducted by the National Population Commission (NPC) but “there is no single line item for family planning” within the N816 billion (4.93% of the total national budget) health sector allocation? Although the NPC Chairman, Hon. Nasir Isa Kwarra, commendably expressed concerns in November 2021 over the “seeming omission of specific funding for family planning in the [then] proposed 2022 budget”, the authorities appeared to have turned a deaf ear to his reasonable plea. To expend huge resources ‘counting’ without a penny allocation for ‘controlling’ the size of our population may not sound penny wise, pound foolish until we situate this argument, without sentiments, in a wider and appropriate social context.
In spite of the fact that having children is one beautiful experience courted by many, certified by our maker and classed a fundamental human right, kindly correct me if this Nigeria’s astronomical population growth isn’t a germane subject at this precarious time in our history. According to www.worldometers.info/geography, Nigeria has a total area of 923,768 square kilometers (land area plus water bodies) and 356,669 square kilometers as the land area within it. Therefore, 206 million people occupy this space. For Nigerians who are quick to whip up arguments of sparse population density as an alibi for non-stop population growth, does Nigeria’s ranking as the 32nd largest geographical area (“list of countries and their covered areas”) justify filling her entire geographical space with humans? Why hasn’t Russia – – number one on the list – with a huge geographical mass of 17,098,242 square kilometers and a land mass component of 16,376,870 square kilometers (11% of world land mass) exponentially increased her Toal Fertility Rate (TFR) to topple her current 146 million inhabitants? If Canada with a geographical mass of 9,984,670 (comprising 9,093,510 land mass; 2nd largest in the world; and 6.1% of world land mass) and about 38 million people had gone berserk with her reproduction status, will the thousands of Nigerians who are daily running from pillar to post for migratory opportunities to the North American country (seen by many of them as ‘heaven’ away from a ‘hellish’ Nigeria) find space therein?
For the sake of clarity, kindly note that there are no condemnations of procreation intended herein. Although it’s likewise legitimate to have as many children as a couple pleases in Nigeria today, the necessity of government’s plan to provide that ‘extra’ school chair, teacher, free book, public bus, health worker, a security official and many more is a public consequence that extends beyond the private use (or overuse) of sexual and reproductive organs of those involved. One can contend therefore that there exists a thin line between the exercise of this human right to procreation and the inhuman wrongs heightened by humongous population size. Or are we increasing our population size because those of us here cannot solve Nigeria’s countless challenges, thus requiring the help of newborns?
Wait! I thought the Nigerian National Bureau of Statistics said we already harbour 83-87 million poor people – a notorious fact conferring an infamous badge of “the world’s poverty capital” on an introspection-hating country. I thought it’s been predicted that the sentiments-driven ‘African giant’ would have her population size skyrocket to an alarming 400 million by 2050, making us the third in the world? I thought it was an open secret that other aspects of our demography (population density, education status, health indices, economic status) were not good enough. I thought our 2020 Total Fertility Rate (TFR) was already 5.2 births per Nigerian woman in reproductive age (15-49 years) – the second highest globally, coming immediately after Niger Republic’s 6.7 births per woman (the world’s highest) with the resultant effect of 206 million Nigerians uncomfortably competing for scarce infrastructure & basic amenities. I thought Dr. Doyin Salami (as the then Chairman of the Presidential Economic Advisory Council) already projected that our unemployment rate may hit 40% by the end of 2021. I thought it was already obvious that our fast-growing population size harms more than it heals. I thought these elucidated contexts and many more were sufficient to positively influence the communal thoughts, words, actions, inactions, habits, character and destiny of Nigerians about population control. Honestly, I thought our contemporary leaders would already muster the courage to rise above traditional, religious & political sentiments to lead Nigerians out of the self-inflicting and senseless complications arising from their beliefs about unrestrained procreation.
Alas, leaders of the three most influential societal blocs in Nigeria – traditional, religious & political, are sorely guilty of late Chuba Okadigbo’s assertion that “if you are emotionally attached to your tribe, religion or political leaning to the point that truth and justice become secondary considerations, your education is useless. Your exposure is useless. If you cannot reason beyond petty sentiments, you are a liability to mankind.” The truth is that Nigerian leaders ought to have begun a deliberate population control conversation several years back, which ought to have culminated in stronger population management policies and consequent actions.
After carefully studying the 36-page National Population Commission (NPC) Act, I hold the firm view that the agency’s restricted mandate of population census without procreation censure is a lousy exposure of Nigeria’s absurdity; I stand to be corrected! Part II of the act that outlines the functions and powers of the Commission (a-j) to include important demographic duties such as population enumeration, registration of births and deaths, migration statistics etc. only pays lip service to a pertinent subject that ideally, as seen in developed countries, ought to strongly dictate a nation’s development trajectory. NPC also needs to shed light on the vague provision of this part of the act (‘h’), which is to “advise the President on population matters”. Perhaps, we should start to consider an amendment to reflect a 21st-century population management agency of government. That will be the beginning of the strategy to truly ‘sustain’ the Revised National Policy on Population for Sustainable Development.
Kindly note that this article didn’t infer that population explosion was the ‘origin’ of our dear country’s large-scale and festering challenges of poverty, insecurity, unemployment, poor governance framework, infrastructure decay, corruption and so forth. Instead of such loose allusions, it posits that the high growth rate of Nigeria’s population ‘worsens’ the debilitating effects of her most profound & pressing problems. Above all, this treatise hopes to awaken like minds to the epic silence of most Nigerian followers and their leaders to the consequences or not, of our unrestricted population expansion. Furthermore, by no means does this write-up imply that people be killed to reduce Nigeria’s population. Like many reasonable Nigerians, I simply can’t hide my trepidations over our pointless enormous funding of the NPC to merely ‘count’ (and not even ‘openly’ educate the populace on population control, but ‘covertly’ advise the President on population matters). Why should NPC also be legally aided to concede the important responsibilities of sensitization and intervention on population-related matters to the health care sector, even without commensurate funding of the latter’s Family Planning (FP) activities? Sad still, the country’s pretentious attitude towards curbing her population growth is evident in her weak family planning policies with funding and governance of FP programmes almost completely consigned to notably global development partners like the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA).
From about 45 million people in 1960 to an estimated 206 million mark in 2022, Nigeria’s population outshines that of her British colonial masters’ whose population was merely 54 million in the year Nigeria got her independence. Do you know that the UK population has merely risen to approximately 67 million in 2022? Isn’t it instructive that Nigeria, whose revenue is majorly from crude oil, is the most populated and fastest-expanding population among all the oil-producing & brent-exporting nations? How can the oil receipts, therefore, be sufficient for our bogus and unchecked human population figures? Why will population explosion not continue to provide able-bodied men for the recruitment exercises of terrorist groups as lamented by former President Olusegun Obasanjo? Why do political leaders and the military top brass conveniently omit population explosion in the periodical reviews of military operations and ‘non-kinetic’ suggestions in the national counter-terrorism strategies?
Meanwhile, for those Nigerians whose religious sentiments include those reproved by the late Senate President, Chuba Okadigbo’s stately and sensible statement, have they considered the fact that the two ‘holy’ nations of Israel and Saudi Arabia do not share similar alarming population indicators with our fast-populating nation? Before Nigerian Christians think of jumping on the next flight to Jerusalem or Rome for a pilgrimage, please be informed that Israel has a 2021 population figure of 9.45 million people and a Total Fertility Rate (TFR) of 3.0 children per woman (World Bank, 2019) while Italy’s 59.3 million populace bears a TFR of 1.31. Before Nigerian Muslims plan to board a plane to Mecca for the next hajj, please note also that Saudi Arabia had 35.01 million inhabitants in 2021 and a TFR of 2.3 children per woman (World Bank, 2019). How did these nations own population-friendly cultures that override their pious considerations for childbearing? My conviction is that population census without procreation censure is a popularized carelessness – or senselessness, of the world’s poverty capital called Nigeria.
Fellow compatriots, can we also refuse to be destroyed by cultural beliefs and political sentiments that aid population boom? Advanced scientific techniques have developed extremely safe and effective contraceptive methods for each woman (although vasectomy is still available for men) and not only estrogen derivatives, depending on her medical history. Those who believe in natural contraception (such as safe periods & withdrawal methods) may continue to do so with the highest level of adherence & standard practice while hoping for optimal effectiveness that wouldn’t lead to calamitous near-misses or outright unwanted pregnancies and consequent undercover abortion-seeking behaviours. While I do not condemn the ‘child spacing only mantra in some quarters, does it also mean so long as we all permit 2-3 years gap between childbirths and have personal resources to cater to their needs, each Nigerian should be left alone to have as many as 28 children? Aren’t there communal implications of uncontrolled use of this human right? Shouldn’t that provoke a greater sense of urgency for our law-making bicameral assembly than to be perennially entertained at plenary by the browbeating profile of procreation and burgeoning penchant for progenies of Hon. Alhassan Ado Garba (popularly called “Doguwa”)? That the Kano-born House leader of the 9th session of the House of Representatives announced early in the year on the floor of the House that he has 28 children and is unrelenting in his babies-making mission shouldn’t cow the National Assembly to do the needful about the grave ignorance of unfettered reproduction among Nigerians.
Finally, here’s, therefore, an onerous call on our leaders – traditional, religious and especially, political – to pause for a second, permit good reasoning with an Okadigbo-like cap, uphold mutual interests above personal idiosyncrasies, and thereafter intentionally begin the process of dissuading the country’s senselessness about uncontrolled human reproduction through intense advocacies and actionable policies. Would it be out of place to consider China’s tough stance on children’s limits per family at this stage of our national mess? If we don’t start talking, thinking and acting in that regard, the recently launched Revised National Policy on Population for Sustainable Development will remain a charade-chasing, shelf-stranded, dust-drawing and garbage-going document on population management in Nigeria.
Dr. Adetolu Ademujimi is a medical doctor and policy expert who wrote in from Akure in Nigeria via [email protected]
