Reps to FG: Take urgent steps to control Nigeria’s population growth

The house of representatives has asked the federal government to take steps to “urgently control” the country’s population growth.

The lower legislative chamber passed the resolution during plenary session on Tuesday following the adoption of a motion sponsored by Chinedu Obidigwe, a lawmaker from Anambra state.

In June 2021, the United Nations published a report indicating that Nigeria’s population had increased to 211 million.

Reacting to the report at the time, former President Olusegun Obasanjo said the country’s population increase could become a “liability” if it is not well managed.

Leading the debate on the motion titled: ‘Need for the federal government to save funds for future generations’, Obidigwe said the federal government should make “conscious and concerted effort” to secure the future of Nigerians.

He said the country’s population is expected to grow to 401 million by 2050, necessitating the government’s need to set aside funds for the future.

“Nigeria’s Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) aims to save money for future generations, provide stabilisation of funds to defend the economy against commodity (oil) price shocks, and provide financing for badly-needed infrastructure,” he said.

“Nigeria, with an estimated population of over 200 million, ranks 58 in SWF ranking which is four places lower than Angola, an oil-producing African country with a population of 32.87 million as of 2021 and has $3.2 billion in assets.

“This is a significant contrast to what other oil producers such as Kuwait, which has $700 billion ‘life after-oil-fund’ different from its $41.7 billion foreign reserves, and Angola with $3.2 billion in assets — both as of March 2021.

“A country such as Kuwait with a population of 4.2 million people and projected growth of 5.3 million by 2050, has a future fund of $700 billion to cater for their future population, whereas Nigeria with an approximate population of over 200 million and an estimated population growth of 401 million people by 2050 has a future generations fund of only $2.5 billion.”

According to the lawmaker, the federal government “spent over N1.8 trillion on debt servicing in the first five months of 2021, representing approximately 98 percent of the total revenue generated in the same period which begs the question of where the savings are”.

The motion was unanimously adopted when it was put to a vote by Femi Gbajabiamila, speaker of the house.

Following that, the green chamber, asked the federal government to focus on more “non-oil sectors of the economy by adopting alternative sources of revenue to enable foreign inflow from oil earnings to go straight to the SWF without affecting budget financing”.

The lawmakers also called on the federal government to “urgently control population growth with policies necessary to fix the future population; and also secure approval from the national assembly before tampering with the country’s savings”.