Government considers new population control policy that will limit each woman to three children

NIGERIA'S government is working on details of a new population control policy that will limit the amount of children people have by recommending that women should not have more than three kids each.

At the moment, Nigeria is the world's seventh most populous country with a population of about 197m and it is estimated that by 2050, this will balloon to 410m, making the nation number three behind India and China. With an annual gross domestic product of just $450bn and budget of a meagre $20bn, Nigeria simply lacks the resources to cater for such a large population, forcing the government to come up with a control policy.

Announcing that a policy to address the matter is being thought out, finance minister Zainab Ahmed, said that traditional rulers and other leaders across the country are being engaged to help put the details of the plan together. She added that the move was aimed at addressing one of the great challenges in the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (EGRP) of the federal government.

Speaking at the 24th Nigerian Economic Summit in Abuja, Mrs Ahmed noted that the country’s population had been identified as one of the great challenges confronting the successful implementation of the ERGP. She added that the plan would be sustained as it was purely a document that focused on the development of the Nigerian economy.

Mrs Ahmed said: “We have been engaging traditional rulers and other leaders. Specifically, we have found out that to be able to address one of the great challenges that we identified in the ERGP, which is the growth in our population, we need to engage these institutions.

“We hope that with their support, we will get to a point where we can come out with the policy that limits the number of children that a mother can have because that is important for sustaining our growth.”

Nigeria currently accounts for 2.57% of the global population and has a population density of 215 per km or 557 people per square mile. About 515 of the populace live in urban centres and with an average age of just 18, Nigeria has a very young population but with the economy wholly dependent on crude oil exports, this potential has not been tapped into.