Ebun Francis|
Nigeria’s minister of finance, Zainab Ahmed, on Tuesday said that the federal government is working with religious and traditional leaders on ways to limit the number of children a woman can give birth to.
She stated this while at the just concluded Nigerian Economic Summit in Abuja.
According to the minister, the federal government has identified population as one of the challenges of successfully implementing the Economic Growth and Recovery Plan (ERGP).
She said, “We have been engaging traditional, religious rulers and other leaders. Specifically, we have found out that to be able to address one of the great challenges that we identified in the ERGP, which is the growth in our population, we need to engage these institutions.”
“And we hope that with their support, we will get to a point where we can come out with the policy that limits the number of children that a mother can have because that is important for sustaining our growth.
“The ERGP is not a new plan, it’s a plan that reviewed what needs assessment, what was in the vision 2020, what is in existing sector plans so because we have taken those plans and used them, the next administration will continue them, which government will not want to continue to improve the infrastructure? What we have in the ERGP are things that any government must do.”
Earlier on Monday while addressing the gathering, Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo noted that research has shown that Nigeria can cut childbirth by 50 percent, by simply educating the girl child.