Editorial -Population control as a means of ensuring food security

There is a need to control the Nigerian population (which is growing in geometrical proportion) most especially for the purpose of ensuring food security now and in the future.

Although there are conflicting figures presented as Nigeria’s present population, the irrefutable fact is that if nothing is done by the way of applying the brakes on population growth quickly, very soon the population figure will certainly outstrip food supply (which is only growing at arithmetical proportion).

The reality is very frightening indeed to contemplate as land space remains stagnant (while U.S.A with more than 50 times land area of Nigeria has 327,527,107 as its population figure, Nigeria is already 200, 264, 692) and growing at a rate of 2.5 percent annually as population increases, meaning that the present farm lands will soon be overrun by human habitation, a development that may lead to food shortage and famine in the near future.

In cities like Abuja, former farm lands have become inhabited city centres and there was even a report that says that today’s Abuja used to be the most fertile part of Niger, Kaduna and Plateau states where gigantic-sized yam tubers and other food produce were farmed.

In other parts of the country, forests are disappearing at an alarming rate, leaving those who depend on them for a living, like farmers, lumber men and the rest to be vulnerable to vagaries of life.

In the Southwest, land grabbers are at work following the foolish and uninformed call by the governor of Oyo state, Senator Isiaka Abiola Ajimobi to every Dick and Harry to come and acquire land in the state, without giving a thought to the implications of such a move.

From the far North comes the news of the fast-approaching desert, leaving devastation in its wake. From the same area are also news of banditry, kidnapping and other nefarious activities of criminal gangs, which is a warning of what is to come should the authorities fail to take action on the rapidly burgeoning population figures.

In order to stem the coming catastrophe, now is the time to stop the unneeded population increase in a sincere manner with more galvanised policies that will ensure increase in food productivity in a geometrical order and not arithmetical so as to avert poverty and more hunger in the very near future.

The reasoning among politicians that ‘high population figures ensures higher share of the national cake’ and which has led to geopolitical zones encouraging unrestricted breeding like rabbits making an individual to fathering as many as 50 children, is nothing but a recipe for disaster.