Nigeria’s National Population Policy and its Implications for Sustainable Development

Abstract

Given the prevailing view that population policy has the potentials to reduce pressure of population on development and the attendant improvement of the welfare of people in society now and in the future, population policy has become an integral part of the overall development policies of most Third World countries as we enter the 21st century. This paper compared Nigeria’s national population policy and programme with those of other Third World countries and examined the implications for sustainable development in the 21st century, considering the trend of events in the country since 1999. it argued that when compared to those of China and India in terms of some specific goals and targets, promotional and motivational measures to enhance compliance, the necessary sanctions for non-compliance of the policy and looking at the trend of events in the country since the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)-led government in 1999, the Nigerian population policy could be said to be neither antinatalistic nor pronatalistic but rather genocidal and anti-Niger Deltans. It concluded that the Nigerian national population policy as currently composed and implemented can therefore not enhance the achievement of sustainable development in the 21st century. It suggested the incorporation of promotional and motivational measures that will enhance compliance and sanctions for non-compliance of the policy in the policy document for ease of its implementation, and thuggery-free elections as the way forward.

LWATI: A Journal of Contemporary Research, 8(4), 255-271, 2011