NIGERIA, May 25, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Just two weeks ago the UN predicted the birth of the world’s 7 billionth baby this October. Calls for measures to control the world’s population growth immediately surged, with some pointing particularly to Nigeria’s rapidly growing population.
Some Nigerians, meanwhile, are celebrating their growing population as the country’s greatest asset.
“We Nigerians are rejoicing,” said Chinwuba Iyizoba, an electrical engineer in Enugu, Nigeria, in a recent article for MercatorNet. “Africans love children.”
Despite warnings that Nigeria’s population could reach 725 million people by 2100, coupled with calls by Western media for population control in the country, the nation’s citizens will not buy the propaganda, said Iyizoba.
While the Western world suffers from the crippling effects of an aging population with fewer youth to provide care, Nigerian parents live in financial security provided for by their larger families. Elderly Nigerians, explained Iyizoba, have no social security in the form of pensions. Instead they are provided for by an “informal pension scheme” that consists in contributions from their children. “Having more children means a better pension,” said Iyizoba.
“We know that in Europe and America, birthrates are far below replacement level. Their populations are ageing and a huge pension debt is resting on the shoulders of a shrinking numbers of their working youths. A day of reckoning is looming for them. Nigerians want to avoid this,” he said.
The Nigerian economy is growing and expanding, added the engineer, precisely because of, rather than in spite of, the country’s large population. “Our large population supplies our economy with the dynamic and youthful workforce it needs to grow, as well as huge markets for all types of businesses.”
“Why are Westerners so nervous?” he asks. “Perhaps they believe that Africans will consume all the food.”
However, Iyizoba dismisses the Malthusian notion that food production cannot keep pace with population increases, explaining how nations rapidly increase their food supply with a larger population and that poor government, not population, results in poverty.
“The Western propaganda that people make us poor blares on. It is often parroted by our own local media and now many Africans fear having many children.”
“The comfort of a small family is deceptive. Many young people in advanced countries are so spoilt by luxury that even the smallest setback feels intolerable,” said Iyizoba. “Euthanasia and birth control result from an inability to cope with suffering, pain and self denial. As one American lady said to me: ‘My biggest fear is suffering and I am so scared of pain.’ No wonder they have high suicide rates!”
Nigeria and other African countries, concludes the engineer, may become world leaders in future generations. “They will [be] helping Europe and the US to fill gaps left by acute shortages of manpower. Perhaps it is a sign of the times that a Nigerian father of five is the new head of the United Nations Population Fund. ‘A world of 7 billion is both a challenge and an opportunity,’ says Dr Babatunde Osotimehin. I totally agree with him.”
Read the complete article here.