By Titus Nyafa
A retired Director of the National Population Commission, Mr Amee Tser, has stressed the need for government at all levels to step up efforts in documenting the nation’s population, through regular surveys and registration of births and deaths.
He made this known on Friday during an interview with Agate Online, in commemoration of the this year’s World Population Day, themed “Empowering Young People to Create the Families they Want in a Fair and Hopeful World.”
Tser, who called for involvement of traditional rulers in the process of documentation, also pointed out that meaningful planning cannot take place in the absence of reliable data, emphasizing that the collection of vital statistics should be done continuously in both urban and rural areas so as to monitor progress.
“It is in Africa that this issue of holistic census at a given time is the order of the day. In developed nations, what happens is that surveys are carried out. The vital registration of birth and death are adhered to strictly. If a child is born, the first thing you owe that child is to register his or her birth. And when somebody dies, you document.
“I was recommending to the Benue State Government that let us include this as one of the functions of the traditional council. Back in our rural areas and even in the towns, they have ward heads, so if you give them birth notification forms, whenever a woman conceives in the environment, they will know and document, same with death.
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“When these two vital registration is done, you’ll just sit on the drawing board. How many people were born within this time, how many died? And you do the arithmetic on your table, on your computer, and you have the population to plan with.
“Birth and death registration should be brought down to the grassroots and pursued religiously, and that will give us the database for planning,” he recommended.
Lamenting the consequences of the delay in the conduct of population census in Nigeria, the former Director recalled that the last census in the country took place in two thousand and six, and since then, the country has been relying on outdated figures, despite a steady population growth rate of approximately three percent in urban areas and two point nine percent in rural communities.
He observed that failure to maintain an up-to-date population record has continued to affect development in key sectors, particularly noting that the health sector suffers from poor planning since the added number of people needing vital health care services remains uncertain.
“In the health sector, as more children are being born, the ante natal clinics have to be expanded; they will have to be spread in such a way that rural areas can be taken care of,so if we don’t know that these issues exist, how can we say we’re not failing?
“So the non conducting of census is affecting us and will continue to affect us adversely,” he said.
In his analysis, he argued population figures are often overlooked in policymaking, resulting in strategies that fail to meet actual needs, maintaining that the lack of population-based planning has led to overstretched public infrastructure and services.
“In Nigeria, we don’t plan with population, and that’s bad. The last census was in 2006, another one proposed for 2023 didn’t hold, and since 2006, growth rate is at 3% and 2.9% in urban and rural areas respectively. If people are growing at that rate and you are still having a school in that same area that existed 20 years ago within the same environment and the conditions of the schools are not improved, you’ll have a scenario where in one class, you have more than 100 pupils in one class, so if don’t expand, it means there will be chaos, so Nigeria doesn’t plan with figures.”
Tser also highlighted that in the educational sector, the government struggles to plan effectively due to lack of accurate data on the number of children at school age, which results in overcrowded classrooms where a single teacher is sometimes left to manage over a hundred pupils or students.
He also linked the acute shortage of jobs to the absence of accurate records on school leavers, undergraduates, and graduates.
“Educationally, they don’t consider the number of upcoming school children; the youth unemployment is occasioned by the fact that they don’t know how many graduates or undergrates the universities are admitting
“As the population is growing at 3 percent exponential growth rate per annum, the problem remains; the universities are not closed, We are producing graduates year in year out; we’re producing HND graduates year in year out, ND the same thing; NCE the same thing.”
He called on the government to emulate other parts of the world which carry out weekly surveys without depending on holistic census exercises which normally delay, adding that such could enhance better planning for national development.
Reflecting on the relevance of this year’s World Population Day theme, the former Director said that empowering young people requires deliberate action, stressing that unless the youth are properly prepared, their transition into family life could be chaotic, and negatively affect the country’s socio-economic balance in the long run.
