Osun Lawmaker Makes Case For Population Control Measures

By Ismaeel Uthman

The Chief Whip of the State of Osun House of Assembly, Hon Tunde Olatunji has expressed his worries over Nigeria’s growing population.

According to Olatunji, Nigeria’s population without conscious efforts towards converting the rising figure into human capital, constitutes great threat to the country’s survival.

Olatunji advocated that government policies must be pragmatically formulated for the purpose of fighting poverty and unemployment, control the nation’s geometric population growth as well as raising the bar of productivity.

The lawmaker who stated this during a media chat with journalists on Wednesday in Osogbo,  the state capital,  called for swift and decisive move to stem the tide of poverty, unemployment and low productivity.

Olatunji who represents Ife North Constituency opined that for a growing population like Nigeria to be an asset, the large percentage of the human numbers must be productive.

He made reference to Germany, which according to 2016 Global Economic Data, recorded a total of 3.6 trillion US dollars as Gross Domestic Product while the whole of Africa with a population of more than one billion struggles with GDP less than 3 trillion US dollars.

The lawmaker said: “The large population of a country is never a strength, rather what constitutes national strength and power is the percentage of such huge number that could be converted into human capital.

“Only human capital would be asset, every other thing is a liability; it is the percentage of a 200 million population that contribute to its productivity that is referred as human capital. This is what suggests whether a society is developing or merely progressing in human numbers which invariably becomes another threat to the survival of the system.

“In the instance where a society with less population is more productive than its counterpart with larger number and more natural resources, the obvious consequence is poverty as is the case in most Africa countries.”

The finance expert turned politician cited China, India and Nigeria as countries  with endemic population growth globally, adding that the ratio of periodic birth per each population places  Nigeria far more  higher than the two others with the rate at which the country’s human numbers explode.

Speaking on the spate of insecurity in Nigeria, Olatunji ascribed the menace to uncontrolled population growth, which according to him, mounts pressure on the limited natural resources, resulting in Climate Change, reduction in resources and forced migration.

He added that forced migration particularly affects the people of the Sahel region of Africa, who helplessly moved downward the wet green region, a situation that continued to heighten tension between farmers and herders in the region.

Olatunji, however, suggested definite  population control measures as reliable panacea,  the same way it was done in Singapore, which moved from third world to first world country within a generation.