POPULATION vs. RESOURCES: A Phenomenon Needing Hasty Attention in Nigeria


It is not uncommon today to hear people saying Nigeria is the largest market in Africa and country with highest human resources on same. Currently, her population stands at 170million, and this has, invariably, piqued the interest of many international companies in Nigeria. However, while our population has brought us good fortunes, it has also brought us woes and impediments of various kinds.

Lest I go further, let me state clearly here that “Nigeria population has gone out of proportion – resources now under weighs population – a phenomenon common with developing countries. Truth be told, no one eats his cake and still have it. We cannot yearn for development and ignore the abnormal up surging of our population. It is so disheartening to realize that our people have mistaken high population for high productivity when only few of Nigerians are productive in reality – just few of us.

Do we still marvel why a 30million populated Canada is ahead of us in all spheres? Norway has been maintaining her current population for years. All plaudits to the foresight of Malthus [one of the world repute Economist] who foresaw the danger that lies ahead if urgent steps are not taken to stall the exponential growth rate of the United Kingdom’s population when her resources was only growing at an Arithmetic rate . Steps were taken and the excellent results are there for us to see today. England’s population is now well controlled, resources are well harnesses and the citizens are living fine.

Dishearteningly and unfortunately, Nigeria’s population is still growing at exponential rate while the resources have only remained stagnant, if not even reducing. The bitter truth is: Nigeria must place ceiling on her population growth for her to experience any reasonable progress. Policies that would help reduce birth rate and that will place limitation to number of children a family can have should be promulgated. Two, or at most three, children should be okay for a family. More so, our people should be educated on the danger of over population; and concerted effort should be made to harness our resources so that the current variance can be corrected. Thank you.

You made an interesting point...

shakazuldadon:
You made an interesting point...

this is just the ugly situation that we have found ourselves.