Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has cautioned the nation against the outburst of population growth without any measures in place to manage it.
According to him, the populace should be equipped with education on family planning and ways the population can be controlled before it gets out of hand. He opined that per Nigeria’s geometric population growth, the country might be declared the third-largest country in 2050.
He spoke at a mentoring session with students of some selected schools across the country dubbed “raising the next wave of innovative leaders through entrepreneurship”.
He said: “We have moved from 120 million to over 200 million. We have added the population of France to our population and if we continue the way we are going, by the year 2050, we will be the third largest country in the world.
“If we still continue, by the year 3000, we would be the largest country in the world.
“What are we going to do to handle that, how are we going to handle that population? If we do not start getting it right now, we will not get it right by the year 2030.”
“What we need to do is to educate people about population management. Some people don’t like saying family planning but, whatever you do, you must manage your population to the benefit of all that are living within your nation,” he added.
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