By IJEOMA UKAZU
Family planning has been identified globally as one of the health interventions that can actually bring demographic dividend in any country.
With the high cost of living in Nigeria followed by the looming population explosion, reproductive health experts say it is important for families to adequately plan for every child born as social amenities are insufficient hence, they are overstretched.
According to the United Nations population projection for Nigeria, the country will hit 263 million in 2030 and 401 million in 2050 and by then, it will become the third most populous country in the world. This is because the country’s population continues to grow at a high rate of 2.6 percent while the global population growth is 1.05 percent annually.
In Nigeria, experts say the increase fertility rate is connected to the socio-cultural explanation where the practice of polygamy is high in most regions of the country. Having a large family size is culturally symbolic as a proof of social standing in the community.
The 2018 Nigeria Demographic And Health Survey, NDHS demonstrated that household wealth status impacts fertility rate in Nigeria and that females in wealthier households had fewer children.
The NDHS also revealed that an average Nigerian woman gives birth to 5.3 children, adding that women in rural areas have an average of 5.9 children compared to 4.5 children among urban women.
The report further shows, one in five teenage girls age 15-19 are already mothers or pregnant with their first child. Rural teenage girls are three times more likely to have begun childbearing than urban teenage girls which is put at 27 percent versus 8 percent.
Though several research has opined that since Nigeria is a patriarchal society, the only avenue to status and security is through motherhood and have been the reason as to why women give birth to so many children.
Worried by this trend, Chairman, Board of Trustees, Public Health Sustainable Advocacy Initiative, PHSAI, Ayo Adebusoye has urged Nigerians not to have children they cannot take care of owing to the high cost of living.
He said, “We cannot just have children and abandon them, don’t have children you cannot take care of. The cost of schooling, feeding, and accommodation has gone up due to inflation. We cannot afford to have children we are not planning for as a country, state and family.
“Space your children, let the mothers have enough time to rest after a pregnancy. Do not have children your bodies cannot take care of as well as your economy cannot afford”.
He said, as part of our strategies in Lagos State, we intend to train and collaborate with 70 percent of religious leaders to increase awareness of the flock on family planning, stating that. “Nigerians claim to be religious people, we listen to our Pastors and Imams a lot. The Holy Bible says, “People perish for lack of knowledge”. We are partnering with religious leaders to create more awareness in their circle to let people know that they must plan your family.”
As part of its strategies, Adebusoye said during a two-day meeting in Lagos that the group has plans to ensure that government commitments to family planning are met.
In Lagos state, he revealed that the population is estimated to be around 28 million adding that, without family planning consumables being made available, the women who need these services will not be able to access them.
He said ” The major agenda of this meeting is how we can actually get the government to increase the family planning budget from N50 million to N100 million in the 2022 budget. We also want to ensure that the State Primary Health Care Board makes the increase effective. Secondly, the LGA Chairmen have a huge role to play. They have just been voted in. We want to make sure that health is at the top of their agenda.”
Also speaking on the issue, an obstetrician/gynaecologist at the University College Hospital, UCH Ibadan, Oyo State, Dr. Christopher Aimakhu revealed that, “if all unmet needs in Nigeria are met, unintended pregnancies will drop by 77 percent, from 2.5 million to 555,000 per year”.
He said, as a result of that, the annual number of unplanned births would be decreased from 885,000 to 200,000 and the number of abortions would drop from 1.3 million to 287,000.
Aimakhu lamented that Nigeria still has a huge unmet need for family planning due to the low availability of contraceptives which is mostly seen in developing countries.
He called on the government and donor agencies to carry out urgent interventions to increase the use of modern contraception in the country.
Similarly, a professor in the department of obstetrics and gynaecology, Usman Danfodiyo University Teaching Hospital, UDUTH, Sokoto, Abubakar Panti decried the high rate of maternal mortality in Nigeria which is put at 512 per 100,000 live births.
According to him, “It is estimated that one in three deaths related to pregnancy and childbirth can be avoided if women have access to contraceptive services”.
Panti added that, almost 50 percent of unmarried women in Nigeria do not have access to modern contraceptives, hence, this situation has put women in conditions of pregnancies not planned for, thereby increasing the country’s population and their chances of dying from unsafe abortion.
He called for increased investment in the procurement of contraceptives, especially at the state level, noting that, “there is a pressing need to limit family size, at the personal and national level. The need for birth control at a personal level is paramount now because there is an increased cost of living, scarcity of accommodation, a desire for better education of children, amongst others”.
On his part, the National Coordinator of Reproductive, Maternal and Child Health Nigeria, Prof. Emmanuel Lufadeju, advised that family planning must be prioritised as the country is at risk of population explosion which will have an adverse effect on our socio-economic development as this will further overstretch our already inadequate social amenities.
Lufadeju said, responsible parenting should be emphasized in order for Nigeria to escape the crisis of an unplanned population explosion.
In comparison with Nigeria’s population growth rate with that of the United Kingdom, a columnist Olu Fasan said
“Nigeria’s population has been growing at a stratospheric rate. Just consider the following statistics. At independence in 1960, Nigeria’s population was 45 million, while that of Britain was 52 million. Today, Nigeria’s population is 211 million, Britain’s is 68 million. So, within 60 years, Nigeria added 116 million to its population, while Britain added just 16 million. Tell me, why should Nigeria’s population grow by 369 per cent in 60 years but Britain’s by only 30 per cent during the same period?
Fasan added that, social scientists would argue that nations with wealthier and more educated people tend to have smaller populations than those with largely poor and illiterate people. Of course, religion and tradition also matter. Predominantly Christian countries, which practise monogamy, are more likely to have smaller populations than countries with large Muslims and traditional believers, who practise polygamy. So, Nigeria’s exponential population growth can be explained in terms of poverty, illiteracy, religion and tradition!
Yet, no cultural, religious or social factor can justify the alarming predictions about Nigeria’s future population. According to the World Economic Forum, Nigeria will have the third largest population in the world by 2050 and overtake China to have the second largest by 2100! Paradoxically, while most major countries, including China, fret about population decline, the worry for Nigeria is about population explosion.