The presidency and the National Assembly have raised the alarm as Nigeria’s population hits 167million.Speaking at a press conference held to mark the world seven billion population on Monday, in Abuja, the Director-General of the National Population Commission (NPC), Mr Jamin Dora Zubema, stated that the occasion afforded the government the opportunity of ruminating over the implication of this burgeoning population to the overall socio-economic well-being of Nigerians.
Noting that population growth could either be an asset or a liability, the director- general stated that it was high time the country moved from obsession with revenue allocation to population management issues and sectoral investments in order to achieve economic growth and development.
Though Nigeria has recorded appreciable improvement in the area of maternal mortality, Mr Zubema said unfortunately, this did not appear to go down fast enough to meet the Millennium Development Goals of 200 deaths or any of the national policy goals by 2015.
He said the story was the same for child mortality where statistics over the last 20 years showed that the country still record 157 deaths per thousand live births in 2008.
Zagbama said the country realised the implication of increasing population on development and had put in place population management policies such as the use of modern contraceptive devices.
However, he said only 10 per cent of married couples were using modern contraceptives as against 77 per cent in other climes.
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