Seven billion and counting the costs

Population explosion should naturally not be an issue in our country. Unlike other lands, over 90 per cent of our land is arable – which means that with farming, we should be able to feed ourselves. But if Thailand wants to kill us, they should impose a rice embargo. If China embargoes Nigeria, where would […]

Population explosion should naturally not be an issue in our country. Unlike other lands, over 90 per cent of our land is arable – which means that with farming, we should be able to feed ourselves. But if Thailand wants to kill us, they should impose a rice embargo. If China embargoes Nigeria, where would we get toothpicks, cheap clothing and whatever it is that comes including the pastry shops they now own where Nigerians experience slavery first hand. The divine order is – be fruitful and multiply, but some have taken that to heart. They believe that the mandate is personal. Those who insult us with almajirci forget that it is not the almajirai that are called area boys in Lagos. They are not the ones causing trouble in the creeks of the Niger-Delta. And certainly, they are not the prostitutes walking the cold streets of Italy, Belgium and other parts of Europe.

Population explosion is a time bomb for a planless society like ours. It is a recipe for chaos and friction. An explosive population breeds social misfits, miscreants and is a waiting army for people with delusive notions to recruit. When a plot of land that used to cater for a single person begins to cater for five; a house meant for three or four people cater for eight; food becomes scarce and conveniences are strained. People have to queue to take their bath and if they more than one person is pressed, adults have to adapt to potties. Taking a bath becomes something for which you have to plot and food has to be rationed when it is available.

For planless governments, the ghetto bulldozer is seen as a hero when he is a shadow boxer. The slums have no control, demolish them in one part of the city you want to showcase as an example of planning and it simply seeps from another part. Crimes are natural in slums – an emerging girl-child would turn to the predator who is kind to her without let or hindrance. The police raid the ghettoes whenever they are broke or need to rape a girl or two.

Human wants are insatiable, but our basic needs are simple – food, shelter, education and health. Whatever comes after is gyara, or value added. Unfortunately, access to these basic needs are made the non-justiciable aspect of our constitution as avenues are created for kleptomania to become a directive of state principle. The elasticity of human endurance is limited. A man can only take so much and no more. The suggestion by Ike Ekweremadu for prostitution to be legalised shows the level of thinking of those who lord it over us. Great somebody nudged him and he now denies it.

Slums are more than an eye-sore; the rubishing of the sleek city we seek to parade to the outside world. They are a cesspit of social derailment. Where people literally sleep on top of each other, there is bound to be disrespect of individual needs and a blatant disregard for basic rights. Children raised in such environments are doomed to be social misfits. The non-fulfilment of basic needs imbue a wrong perception of the notion of survival of the fittest.  High child mortality rates makes raising more children a natural instinct – you are not sure of which one would survive.

Society’s rejects naturally find solace in religion instead of growing in faith. The sound of the muezzin or the bell of worship is a natural call to war. Social misfits are often victims of megalomania. Without questioning, they succumb to all sorts of doctrines. When life fails to deliver what it could and what is should, the notion of a hereafter is an irresistible lure to which people would do the ridiculous to attain.

With population explosion comes societal friction. The wars over lands at the national and inter-national levels is a result of this. It has been predicted that the Third World War is likely to be fought as a result of access to water. Land boundaries are a constant source of friction in most parts of the globe, including the so-called developed world. Our country needs a new social order, one in which every individual has a justiciable right to the basic four needs mentioned supra. If that is not done and we continue the way we are, there will be more Boko Haram; more militancy; more armed robbery; more prostitution; more social vices. But we must fight for it, or else be doomed by it. The kleptocrats have immunity against most of these vices, the poor of Nigeria must unite and take their destinies into their own hands.