A motion seeking to enact a law that will checkmate the rate of population growth in Nigeria led to a passionate debate in the House of Representatives recently. The motion that almost divided the House with the introduction of religious sentiments was to be referred to relevant House Committees for advice.
The population debate is not a new one. Since the late 18th century, global concerns have been raised by scholars to the dangers inherent in a world of finite resources with unabated population growth. Students of economics cannot forget in a jiffy the popular Malthus theory of population that postulated a world in which population outstripped food resources. Though jettisoned, other issues in population have since cropped up the latest being sustainable development which simply defined is a means to ensure human well-being, equitably shared by all people today and in the future. Sustainable development requires that the interrelationship between population, resources, environment and development, be recognized, publicized, properly managed and brought into harmonious balance.
According to ‘The World Factbook’, of the world’s population of 7.3 billion, Nigeria currently has about 181.56 million thus making it the 7th most populated nation in the world. Over the decades, improvement in health care and new bio-medical technology coupled with education and enlightenment, has led to rapid fall in infant mortality and morbidity rates. Deaths that were previously recorded from diseases such as cholera, malaria to mention a few, have been staved off. Though diseases such as cancer, heart attack, diabetes, AIDS, continue to ravage mankind, advancement in medical sciences has generally led to increase in life expectancy at birth.
That our population is large is not the problem. The structure of the population relative to available resources needed to guarantee better well-being for all on a sustainable basis is the issue. Like in most developing countries, Nigeria’s working population (defined as those above 24 years and under 65 years) constitute just 35% of the total population thus making the dependency burden a high one (population of people under 15 years is as high as 44% of total population). The large number of young people simply means that the country has an in-built high reproductive potential which ipso facto means increased requirement for resources that produce national wealth for sustenance.
To some, what we have is not population problem but rather a development problem. The argument is that we have been endowed with nature in such a way that the fears being expressed on our growing population need not surface with right leadership and efficient management. In other words, bad leadership and mismanagement has brought us to where we are thus the hullabaloo about population and the need for control. This is an over-simplification of the population problem. Yes, we may have development problem but we do have population problem as well. In a world of finite resources, no degree of efficiency can save us from exponential population growth and its dire negative consequences. Poverty, worsened by rapid population growth rate, inept leadership to harness resources for equitable distribution to all, combine to form a vicious circle with low development and insecurity.
The reality of the situation is that the population-sustainable development nexus is real. With an annual addition of about five million people at a growth rate of 2.7%, Nigeria population is estimated to be about 355 million in 2045. There is the temptation to quickly say that we have the fastest growing economy in Africa, so why worry? GNP and even per capita income, though indexes of national wealth, do not fully reflect all the dimensions of the country’s population problems. The experience in Nigeria is that of unequal development, poverty and squalor in the villages where the majority of the population reside and gleams of riches in the cities and urban centres, thus the ever increasing rural-urban migration causing stress on infrastructures and resulting into the emergence of shanty towns.
We need to worry as virtually all the targets set for 2015 in the National Policy on Population are far from being achieved. Birth rate, for example, still hovers around 2.7% as against a target of 2%. There is nothing much to show for the ‘Behavioural Change Communication’ efforts of government less for occasional posters here and there, some slogans and jingles. The average Nigerian woman still gives birth to as much as six children in her lifetime. We need to worry as rapid growth of our population poses economic, social, health and environmental challenges not only to the country but to the world. Would the additional millions of people enjoy good standard of living? Would they have decent access to adequate and meaningful education and health services? Would they feed well, clothe well, have good employment, have decent accommodation, live in good environment as opposed to shanties, have good security and avoid poverty, ‘relative’ or ‘absolute’? At the moment, financing of education, health, housing and other infrastructural needs of the people like power, good roads, clean water supply, has become a serious issue for government. Much capital is required, far beyond what government can afford due to dwindling revenue. Our traditional agricultural practices apart, issues of desertification, climate change and insurgency, exert serious limitation on food production and our ability to feed well. If the situation is this bad at the moment, what becomes of the situation when the nation’s population doubles can best be imagined. Population control, morally and logically, is a necessary desideratum.
In the midst of these is the resistance of religious leaders to the adoption of population control measures. From Christianity (Roman Catholics) to Judaism to Islam, there is one form of opposition or the other with Islam as the most vociferous. Their argument is that Allah in His usual mercy and mysterious ways will provide for His own irrespective of the number. This is wishful thinking. Concern is also raised on the devastating implications on morality and family life of birth control measures. In my convinced opinion, no Qur’anic text forbids prevention of conception; conception does not amount to killing a human being. What I suspect as the problem are political and religious figures that have coopted religion to justify their pro-natal and anti-control positions.
Nevertheless, a balanced humanistic perspective is needed for effective population control policy. Demonizing birth control measures as a way of checking population growth is more of religious delusion and this will not help anyone. It is the easiest way to hasten the apocalypse. At the same time, population control measures, in the words of Benazir Bhutto, “should not be seen as a national social charter to impose adultery, abortion, sex education and other such matters on individuals, societies and religions which have their own social ethos”. Taking a cue from the experiences of China and Pakistan, we should start to consider legislating the 1988 ‘One Man, Four Children’ policy of the Babangida administration. The principle that leaves the number and spacing of children a free decision of couples should be reviewed. The vote should be for pragmatism, not ideology or religion. The motion by Honourable Babatunde Kolawole should not die but widened and deepened.
Sina Monehin, former Executive Director of Energy Bank Ghana, writes from Akure, Ondo State.
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