Reports mid last week highlighted how a motion that canvassed the need for population control in the country introduced by Rep Babatunde Gabriel Kolawole stirred the hornet’s nest and literally split the House of Representatives into two. Kolawole’s motion on the “Need for the Federal Government to curb population explosion in Nigeria” was intended to draw the attention of the FG to the necessity of curbing imminent population explosion in the country through a workable birth control policy; and to direct the National Orientation Agency (NOA) to educate Nigerians on the benefits of family planning.
Rep Kolawole had backed his motion with the 2011 Population Reference Bureau (PRB), United States’ World Population Data Sheet report released in 2014, which said Nigeria’s population would rise to 433 million by 2050 to make the country the third most populous nation globally, behind only India and China; and higher than the US, too, whereas Nigeria occupies just 10 percent of America’s land mass. Apparently drawing from the challenges population explosion created for countries like China and India, whose population figures were put at 1.4 billion and 1.28 billion respectively, in times past, in respect of pressure on state finances and infrastructure, food, housing, education and healthcare, high unemployment, crime, poverty, among others, the Rep argued that Nigeria risked similar headaches with her population hovering around the 166 million mark, with about five million people added annually.
While Kolawole’s motion made sense to some dispassionate members of the House, to others, especially his Muslim colleagues, it was a bitter pill. A Rep member from Bauchi State reportedly dismissed the motion as an unnecessary waste of time; while others that spoke after him said it was anti-Islam and a direct attack on Muslim religion. It took the Speaker Yakubu Dogara to navigate through the sensitive motion, disagreeing with the impression that it was an attack on any religion, but simply a national planning matter. The Speaker subsequently referred the motion to the relevant House Committees to chart the way forward.
China, like Nigeria, is a multireligious nation, with Taoism, Confucianism, Islam and Christianity featuring very prominently. But when the country was faced with the crisis Kolawole fears may befall Nigeria if not nipped in the bud, China relegated religious and other differences and introduced its popular, though controversial ‘One- Child Policy’, which implementation commenced in 1980, to limit the country’s population growth and strain on resources. Reports indicate that 35 years after, the policy prevented 400 million births in that country. But with China’s phenomenal breakthroughs in all fields of human endeavour since 1980, latest reports credited to Xinhua, the Chinese government’s news agency, say the ‘One-Child Policy’ era is about giving way and Chinese parents will soon be legally permitted to have two children if they so wish. Details of the policy reversal are still being worked out.
India had no strict birth control policy like China, but recent reports suggest that despite the country’s scientific, technological and industrial, etc breakthroughs, like China, the national mood in India increasingly favours a tougher approach. At least six Indian states were said to have enacted laws mandating a two-child norm for members of village councils and civil servants. Indeed, one report said some states were considering denying educational benefits to third children; while others were increasingly turning to incentives like pay raises, access to land or housing, for public servants who choose sterilization after one or two children. India is also a country of many religions – Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Sikhism, Jainism, Zoroastrianism and Judaism.
Considering the level of economic deprivation, poverty and mass unemployment, deficit infrastructure, educational, health and social services, as well as scant employmentgenerating establishments, vis-à-vis exponential population increase in Nigeria, we align with Rep Kolawole’s motion and urge the House of Representatives to give it premium attention. Such concern as Kolawole expressed compelled the military government of General Ibrahim Badamasi Babangida (rtd) to tinker with the unsuccessful ‘One Man, Four Children Policy’ in 1988. Former Governor Babangida Aliyu of Niger State, in 2013, also canvassed for a law to regulate the number of wives and children a man should have. Both IBB and Aliyu are Muslims. The House of Reps should not allow religious hypocrites, who wish for others (street children) what they reject for their own children, to diminish the inherent wisdom in birth control policies.
