Nigeria joined the rest of the world four days ago, to commemorate World Population Day (WPD)aimed at increasing people’s awareness of various population issues such as the importance of family planning, gender equality, poverty, maternal health and human rights.
Chairman of the National Population Commission (NPC), Chief Eze Duruiheoma, speaking in Abuja in commemoration of the 2014 WPD, revealed that Nigeria’s teenage population has risen to 60 million from 44 million in 2006 and is even expected to rise to 73 million by 2020.
According to the 2006 census, young people aged 20-24 stood at 44, 470, 448 (33.1 per cent) of the total population. In 2014, it increased to 60,447,431. By 2020, the number of young people is expected to reach 73,188,057, out of projected population of 221 million. Duruiheoma added that the Commission is set to launch a platform for interaction with young people.
“We are partnering with young people including adolescent girls. Safe, successful and health passage from adolescence into adulthood is the right of every child…” This is a welcome step in the right direction as these forecasts will help the country to plan.
Given this development, the most sensible thing to do is to make them part and parcel of governance. It is also pertinent to add that young people in the country need more than interaction; they need the right information on issues that concern their reproductive health, as well as youth-friendly centres where they can walk in and interact with peers and health professionals who will attend to their needs without stigmatization.
Government should ponder the number of young people in the country whose lives have been in disarray over unfulfilled dreams, dashed ambitions, unmet needs and desires and make a concerted effort to plan around them with a view to protecting and empowering them. It is equally important to offer them detailed knowledge about sexuality, getting married when they are able to understand their responsibilities and the effects of unwanted pregnancies.
Several events in the country have painfully shown that young people are the endangered specie. Generally, they are still very far from being integrated into the mainstream of governance in the country as a result of gender-based inequalities, which have thrown up a lot of negative issues that are inimical to their development.
Adolescent pregnancy is one of the destabilizing factors in the life and progress of this segment of the society. A large pool of them especially the females do not realize their full potential, necessitating government’s action to improve adolescent sexual and reproductive health education. It is equally important to understand that adolescent pregnancy does not only add to the rate of mortality, it can result in school drop out, increased incidents of Sexually Transmitted Infections (STIs) and jeopardy of ambitions and potentials of girls.
Globally, about 16 million girls under age 18 give birth each year and 3.2 million undergo unsafe abortions. In Nigeria, young people contribute more than 60 per cent of unsafe abortions annually, according to a study by Campaign against Unwanted Pregnancy (CAUP) in 2006. Complications from pregnancy and child birth are the leading cause of death among girls between age 15- 19 in developing countries.
These complications may cause obstetric fistula, illness, injury and death. These are the major causes of death where abortion is illegal and highly restricted even as Africa reportedly has the highest abortion rate in the world with an estimated 680 deaths per 100,000 abortions.
Millions of girls are coerced into unwanted sex through marriage or rape, increasing the risks of unwanted pregnancies, unsafe abortions and STIs, including HIV, as well as death or disability due to childbirth.
What readily comes to mind is the plight of over 200 hundred abducted Chibok girls, who may have become sex slaves. The number of youths without employment is unacceptably high, leading to involvement of some of them in criminal activities.
Also, several youths are co-opted as thugs by politicians and some of them have lost their lives in the cause of achieving other people’s ambitions, while a large number is participating in prostitution or other menial jobs to make ends meet.
This situation is deplorable and must be nipped in the bud with youth-friendly budget and policies. Several social, cultural and economic factors are responsible for adolescent pregnancy. Some of them are early marriage, poverty, and rape. In simple term, the better educated young people are about their reproductive health, the better prepared they are to make wise choices.
It is, therefore, imperative for federal, state and local governments to help young people make a healthy transition to adulthood, which in development circle is very critical to the country’s development and prosperity of its future population.
One of such is continued school attendance as well as delayed sexual initiation, marriage, and childbearing. Since adolescence is the time that young people develop physically, emotionally and intellectually before becoming parents or primary wage earners, it also presents new vulnerabilities to human rights abuses.
As we take stock of the progress of young people, let us resolve to work assiduously and in concert to remove all obstacles to their full participation in nation building and thereby ensure a better future for all.
