The above title is a paraphrase from an address delivered by Eze Duruiheoma (SAN), Chairman, National Population Commission (NPC), at the investiture ceremony of Rotarian Alex Geolebedum, as the 34th President of the Rotary Club of Festac Town, on Saturday, October 17, 2015. As observed by the Commission Chair, there is a point of confluence between Rotary and the NPC “in the noble cause of advancing humanity through projects that have direct bearing on the people”. As he also noted, “the people are both the agents and beneficiaries of any development effort”.
With a current estimated population of 187,301, 926, Nigeria he observed, is the tenth most populous country in the world; but by 2050, with an estimated population of 289 million, she would become the fifth most populous country. Quoting the National Bureau of Statistics (2010), Duruiheoma said, “it would be noticed that as the population of the country grows, the incidence of poverty also increased”. Observably “rapid population growth threatens food security, causes massive food importation that drains scarce resources and mounts pressure on the available arable land leading to excessive fragmentation”.
From his analysis, the threat posed by high level of unemployment among the youthful population in our country, is even more precarious than many Nigerians may know. With young people who are aged 0-24 constituting 62 percent of the total Nigerian population (2009), high unemployment among the youths, clearly pose a grievous threat to the very existence of our country. The army of unemployed youths may indeed explain why the army of Boko Haram, suicide bombers, kidnappers, violent armed robbers, reckless okada riders, political thugs, street hawkers and other purveyors of security threats, seems to be inexhaustible.
Going further, he informed the august gathering that “while the annual population growth rate is 3.2 percent, the annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate is 3.5 percent”. Before the audience could get excited by the slight difference between the GDP and the population growth rate, the learned silkwarned, “though the growth rate appears higher, the economy cannot accommodate the rapid population growth and regardless of the fact that the country is rich in both human and natural resources, much more resources will be required to take care of the ever growing population that will over stretch the resources available for development”.
President Muhammadu Buahri (PMB), the state governors, the local government administrators, and the Millennium Development Agencies (MDA), and indeed all agencies of government and the private sector,from that report, clearly have their jobs caught out for them. Grow the national economy and create more employment opportunities for our youthful population, if Nigeria is to survive.The realisation that the population profile is also critical to national security, may have informed the desperation by PMB to find the technical study, conducted by President Olusegun Obasanjo’s government, on how to channel some rivers to the Lake Chad, to provide economic opportunities for over two million people, relying on the lake for survival. That obviously will help the north east have respite, fromarmed insurgencies, like the Boko Haram.
Considering that many state governors have borrowed from the federal government, which itself is substantially insolvent, to meet their recurrent expenditure, the future is indeed grim, for our dear county.For if they have borrowed to eat, how would they be able to save, to invest? And yet without investment in critical infrastructure, the much sought after employment opportunities, would remain a mirage.As the Chairman said in his lecture, “high fertility leads to high increase in schools enrolment and pressure on facilities”. He also noted that “scores of urban slums now exist in our cities with people living in sub-human conditions without decent accommodation, toilet facilities and infrastructure”.
Perhaps the realisation of the inadequacy of government as the sole purveyor of development and the realisation of the enormous contribution of Rotary to human development, across the nations of the world, may have informed the interest of the NPC Chair, in the affairs of Rotary. Interestingly, the Rotary Club of Festac Town, has exceptionally distinguished herself, in the pursuit of Service Above Self, which is the Motto of the Rotary Movement. Giving a record of his performance in office, the immediate Past President of the Club, Rotarian Gabriel Onyema, confirmed that the Club spent over 25 million naira, in rendering humanitarian services, in the 2014-2015 rotary year.
With the huge success recorded in the past rotary year, in service to humanity; the new rotary year, is expectedly going to be more exciting and challenging. According the new president, Rotarian Alex, the six arrears of focus for the rotary year, is, peace and conflict prevention/resolution; disease prevention and treatment; water and sanitation; maternal and child health; better education and literacy and economic and community development. He and his board which was also inaugurated by him, last Saturday, proposed a conservative budget of 22 million naira, for the rotary year.
Instructively, in his address, the Chairman of the NPC, reminded the gathering of the National Policy on Population for Sustainable Development (2004), the objectives of which are “to increase understanding and awareness of the interrelationships between populationand development, expansion of access and coverage to improve quality of reproductive and sexual healthcare services, and strengthening and expansion of comprehensive family planning and fertility management programme”.The commission chair admitted that “the policy have not been met due largely to lack of commitment by stakeholders”.
He therefore enjoined Rotarians “to help to sensitize stakeholders on the imperative for the review of the population policy … so that the nation can have a new National Population Policy that will embody our aspirations and determination as a nation”.
