By Jean Ambele
Abuja – Lucy George, a development economist and former staff of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, has advised Nigerians to focus on population reduction in order to boost economic development.
George gave the advice in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Tuesday.
She said that Nigeria’s growing population was a threat to the economic development of the country due to the dearth of economic resources to cater for everyone.
“Nigeria is the most populated country in Africa and the most populated black nation.
“As much as we will love to have that as a pride, it is a worrisome situation that we have on ground.
“Like any African country, Nigeria is very diverse in terms of culture and religion, which makes the understanding of the country complicated.
“The overwhelming and growing population of Nigeria is fuelled by some cultural and religious beliefs that have been part of us.
“ However, we have to realise that with the current economic condition in Nigeria, it is extremely necessary for Nigerians to take family planning seriously to reduce the growing population.
“Nigeria is a country with a landmass of 923,768 km²; meanwhile there are states in the U.S. like Texas and Alaska, with a landmass of 695,662 km² and 1,717,856 km2 respectively.
“I’m referring to a country with a state that is close to the size of our country and another much bigger than our country, yet, our population density is much close to them.
“That means that there are not enough economic resources to be shared among all the individuals who live in Nigeria because our population is too high,’’ she said.
George also said the lack of resources to cater for the large population was responsible for the rise in crime rate.
“The population is growing but our landmass won’t grow; so, we have to forget cultural beliefs and control our population growth.
“This is important because this concept has led to a high rate of unemployment and a high rate of unemployment leads to high crime rate.
“People need to take care of themselves and families; but with the scarcity of jobs fueling unemployment, crimes like kidnapping, petty theft, fraud and more will continue to rise.
“These are factors that lead to insecurity which discourages domestic productivity and domestic investment by foreign investors.
“There is still time to fix our problem, but the time to fix it is now, ’’ she said. (NAN)