Former President Olusegun Obasanjo has warned that the surge in Nigeria’s population should be a cause for worry.
Obasanjo said this on Thursday while speaking at a one-day 2019 annual retreat/conference and general meeting of members of Association of Chief Audit Executives of Banks in Nigeria held in Abeokuta.
Obasanjo, who spoke as guest speaker at the event, pegged his talk on 5 Ps – politics, population, prosperity, protection, and partnership.
He said: “What I want to emphasise is that, it is a must as Nigerians and as Africans, that we have certain elements that we have to take very seriously which I put as five Ps.
“The first is politics which is governance. Unless we get governance right, any other thing we are trying to do will not be right.
“The second is population. Our population at independence, we were estimated to be 45 million; but today, we are 200 million.
“By the year 2050, we will be over 400 million. Normally, population should be an asset, but looking at the condition we are in now, when in the North-East of Nigeria, the percentage of adult literacy is about 53 per cent. You can see that we have a problem and education is basic in all human development.
“How do we think of making education to be useful? Those people who will make our population over 400 million in years’ time are already born and you cannot unborn them. So, the problem is here, what do we do?
“We must provide education for them, housing, healthcare, education for them, and more importantly, employment for them.”
The former president also raised the alarm that Nigeria was more divided and in danger now than it was during the civil war.
Obasanjo also said he believed agriculture would help improve unemployment rate in the country.
