Family Planning, a Solution to Poverty in Nigeria - Ejike Oji

The chairman of the Association for the Advancement of Family Planning in Nigeria, Mr. Ejike Oji, stated on Monday that family planning was a panacea to multidimensional poverty.

Oji, while in Abuja, stated that he advised Nigerians to adopt family planning for quality living in all ramifications.

“Currently, Nigeria is one of the countries with structural poverty. This entails that so many homes in the country lack access to not just money but quality healthcare, food, water, education, etc.,” he stated.

The chairman expressed hopefulness about the competence of family planning to reduce structural poverty.

Oji said when parents plan well for childbearing and spacing, they will provide basic resources to themselves and their children.

The medical practitioner who blamed the increase in insurgency and insecurity on a lack of family planning noted that children born without good planning were vulnerable to becoming miscreants.

He claimed that some of the terrorists in the country were children born without planning. He urged the government at all levels to produce policies supporting family planning locally and nationally.

According to the National Multidimensional Poverty Index by the National Bureau of Statistics, 133 million Nigerians, representing about 60 percent of the country’s population, are multidimensionally poor.

It noted that they are deprived of no fewer than one important survival need, which includes good health, good living standards, basic education and gainful employment.