Nigeria’s Population Explosion, a Danger Sign – FOMWAN

The Federation of Muslim Women Association of Nigeria (FOMWAN) has described the nation’s population growth rate as a danger sign.
In an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Friday in Abuja, Mrs Sa’adatu Hashiu, President of the association, attributed the country’s population rate of 198 million on poor Family Planning (FP).
Hashiu also blamed men as responsible for the explosion as some of them marry as many as three, four or more wives and give birth to children they could not cater for, thereby compounding the nation’s demographic problem.

The FOMWAN president noted that the northern part of the country has the highest burden of the growth.
She explained that some of men engaged in multiple marriage, give birth to children they are unable to take care of due to misinterpretation of the Qur’an thereby flooding the streets with beggars, popularly known as ‘Almajiri’, among others.
Hashiu decried the rate of children roaming the streets and begging because of irresponsible parenting to have them in school or engaged in a trade.
According to her, if this problem is not addressed in the next 20 years there will be high rate of insecurity, hunger and accommodation problems, among others.
“In the next 20 years considering our population growth, it will triple and a lot of the people will find it difficult to feed, have no place to rest their heads and lack access to farm land, among others.
“The explosion is a danger sign in the sense that we all love to have children, we hope for rain but fear the lightening because we know that it will come with thunder. So explosion is the thunder, so we should be very careful about it.

“All the children that are now on the street doing all sorts of things will as well marry out of ignorance and have children in that regard as well,” she said.

The FOMWAN president recommended massive public enlightenment to curb the menace, urging traditional and religious leaders to rise up to their responsibilities in enlightening the populace on the need to marry, space and have the number of children they can conveniently cater for.
According to her, such efforts will go a long way in addressing the societal ills with regard to insecurity, hoodlums, children roaming the streets begging and hawking, among others. (NAN)