The Chief Whip of Osun State House of Assembly, Hon. Tunde Olatunji has declared that Nigeria’s growing population constitutes great threat to its survival without conscious efforts towards converting the rising figure into human capital.
He explained that governmental policies must be pragmatically formulated for the purpose of fighting poverty, by controlling the nation’s geometric population growth as well as raising the bar of productivity.
Olatunji stated this at a media chat with journalists, in Osogbo, the Osun state capital on Friday, calling for urgent intervention to control birth rate.
The lawmaker, who represents Ife North state constituency opined that for a growing population like Nigeria to be an asset, the large percentage of the human numbers must be productive.
He made allusion to Germany, a country in Europe, which according to 2016 Global Economic Data recorded a total of 3.6 Trillion US dollars as Gross Domestic Product while the whole of Africa with a population of more than one billion struggles with GDP less than 3 Trillion US dollars.
“The large population of a country is never a strength;rather what constitutes national strength and power is the percentage of such huge number that could be converted into human capital.
“Only human capital would be asset, every other thing is a liability, it is the percentage of a 200 million population that contribute to its productivity, for instance that is referred as human capital. This is what suggests whether a society is developing or merely progressing in human numbers which invariably becomes another threat to survival of the system.
“In the instance where a society with less population is more productive than it’s counterpart with larger number and more natural resources, the obvious consequence is poverty as the case in most Africa countries”, Olatunji posited.
The financial expert turned politician cited China, India and Nigeria as countries with endemic population growth globally, adding that the ratio of periodic birth per each population places Nigeria far more higher than the two others with rate at which the country’s human numbers explode.
Speaking on the spate of insecurity in Nigeria, Olatunji ascribed the menace to uncontrolled population growth , which according to him mounts pressure on the limited natural resources, resulting in Climate Change, reduction in resources and forced migration.
He added that forced migration particularly affects the people of the Sahel region of Africa , who helplessly moved downward the wet green region, the situation that continued to heighten tension between farmers and herders in the region.
He however suggested definite population control measures as reliable panacea, the same way it was done in Singapore, which moved from third world to first world country within a generation.
