By Solomon Okocha

“The Civilized… murder their children by producing too many of them without being able to provide for their well-being. Morality or theories of false virtue stimulate them to manufacture cannon fodder, anthills of conscripts who are forced to sell themselves out of poverty. This improvident paternity is a false virtue, the selfishness of pleasure.” – Charles Fourier

I love children. I’m always delighted when I see a quiver full of them. The smile of a cute toddler is medicine to a broken heart. That pinch, bite, scratch, and ringtone-like laughter, can add a few more years to an ageing being. They roll around you and drag your chin from side to side; they are the owners of your entire body - they want to hide under your clothe and arm. No dull moments at all with kiddies.

The statement that says, “you can have as many children as you want to have, if you can take care of them”, is a mere conjecture without any bearing whatsoever with reality. Firstly, we must ask ourselves these questions that need urgent answers: what standard is the best for raising up children? Who is supposed to raise up a child? Is it morally right to raise up children knowing that you don’t have the means to take care of them? Is the search for the ‘male’ child the reason for over-bloated families? What’s really the matter? Why are there so many fatherless and motherless children everywhere? In this harsh economy, why should anyone have more children than he or she can carter for? What is it with an astronomical population surge in the midst of excruciating poverty?

Nigeria’s population has increased sharply for at least the last 5 decades due to very high birth rates, doubling its population 2 times during this time. About 43.8% of our population is made of children between the ages of 1-14 years. Ours is a fast growing population; an increment in size that has no commensurate planning in return.

We are clearly in trouble as a people. Any country that is without a working national databank of her citizens cannot adequately plan for them. I dare say that Nigeria does not have record of thousands of children that are being born on a daily basis. This country does not budget its resources in strict observance of her population. I have said it in so many fora, and I’ll continue saying it everywhere; the Federal Government of Nigeria cannot be talking of rejigging the economy without monitoring and regulating the population. A population of over 170 million people is too homongous for this epileptic economy. Nigeria is sitting on a time bomb!

Life is free, but life is not cheap. It takes a whole lot to sustain life. Life has value, life should be valued. A human being ought not to live below the standard of “master of the earth” - a position given by God to man. To bring an offspring into this life means that you must be fully ready to bear the burden of a fellow being, at least, until maturity.

No doubt about it, there is a slight positive side to over-population. It is the engine that drives industrialisation, tis the very soul of development. However, in the absence of industrialisation, an extra-large and consistently increasing population is a disaster to humanity. Crime and other forms of societal ills are all directly linked to overpopulation that’s not massaged with industrialisation. To mix up a depressing economy with an exploding population is nothing but a terrible mistake.

http://metrowatchonline.com/opinion-nigerias-terrible-mixture-population-explosion-economic-depression/