Women are blamed for Nigeria's rising population growth: How true is this?

With an average growth of about 2.6% per annum, the number of people in Nigeria is projected to more than double its current number by 2050 thus positioning the country as the world's third most populous country (stripping off the title from the US) after China and India. Early marriages, rising birth rate (due to increased fertility), lack of proper family planning amongst others are believed to be the major driver of the rising population trend in Nigeria.

With a rising population and a fixed landmass of 923,763 km2, population density is expected to rise further especially in Lagos and other key city centres thus straining government lean resources and putting significant pressure on already dysfunctional infrastructural facilities.

“More than half of the projected increase in the global population up to 2050 will be concentrated in just nine countries: The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Egypt, Ethiopia, India, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, the United Republic of Tanzania, and the United States of America,” the United Nations said.

Copious evidence exists in economic history and empirical research endeavors about the positive nexus between population and economic growth underpinned on the large market size and the cheap labour force it offers. However, too large a population (especially one ridden with pervasive, nauseating poverty and stark illiteracy) constitute a drag to the actualization of a sustainable, robust and inclusive growth prospect. 

The reality of the latter has, in recent times, be established. It is not a coincidence that some of the most populous nations in the world are home to world's highest number of poor people. The likes of India, Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Congo DR and our own Nigeria readily comes to mind. 

It is not surprising therefore that a key mechanism of poverty alleviation hinges on effective population control measures. China did it with her ruthless pursuit of the, "One Child Policy". Sadly, there is no credible, effective, clear-cut measure to stem the tide of our escalating population figure in Nigeria.

However, the crux of this write-up revolves around an evolving subtle tendency to lay the blame of population expansion solely on women: “How can one woman give birth to 10 children?,” we ask blandly. “The female fertility rate is too high,” we complain bitterly. All these are some of assertions we make to continually push odd, illogical narrative that vilify women.

By some sort of social voodoo, women are continually in the limelight whenever Nigeria’s population quagmire is discussed. But we have forgotten the real culprit in the room: the unbridled sexual appetite of a man which can add more to a population than that of a woman. This is similar to adultery where the woman is victimized and ostracized and a man is protected and praised for his “smartness and manliness,” 

A simple illustration in this regard will suffice: A woman cannot become pregnant when she is already confirmed to be heavy with a child. She can have countless sex within that nine months window with no fear of “double pregnancy” so to say. That’s an incontrovertible medical fact! That is to say, within nine months, she can only one child. Meanwhile, a man can impregnate 30 women – and even more. In other word, one man, 30+ children.

The same analogy holds for a polygamous setting. Of course, polyandry is a taboo in most Nigerian culture. Consequently, the critical question we should now start asking is, “Who is most responsible for our population woes? The man or the woman?”

We have long used religion as a basis to explain away certain policies that would have served us good. We have jeopardized our collective progress on the altar of religious fanaticism and ethno-tribal bigotry. In Islam, it is said that a man can marry more than one wife provided he have the means to cater for them (that clearly isn’t the case in Nigeria). Catholicism preaches against use of contraceptive (though support natural birth control) because, “…the Lord said, go ye to the world and multiply,” an absolutely fallacious theological exposition to excuse attempt at taming man's insatiable sexual urge.

Effective population control measure significantly depends on how ready we are as a nation to recognize and wrestle, to the very root, these colossal misconceptions that has come to dominate our everyday belief system. The government must be proactive enough to recognize that our population growth is a bomb waiting to explode: the timer is on a countdown. The earlier we acknowledge the wire to cut to defuse it, the better for us.