Minister of Finance
[dropcap]T[/dropcap]he federal government said it is working with religious and traditional leaders on ways to limit the number of children a woman can give birth to.
The Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed, who disclosed this while responding to questions during a session at the 24th Nigerian Economic Summit in Abuja, noted that the country’s population had been identified as one of the great challenges confronting the successful implementation of the Economic Growth and Recovery Plan (ERGP).
She acknowledged that religious leaders are a third force in the development of Nigeria, and that the federal government has been working with them to control population growth.
“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,” she said.
“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.”