The House of Representatives has called on the federal government to take action to “urgently control” the country’s population growth.
The lower legislative house passed the resolution during the plenary session on Tuesday after passing a motion sponsored by Chinedu Obidigwe, an Anambra state legislator.
In June 2021, the United Nations published a report indicating that Nigeria’s population had risen to 211 million.
Reacting to the report at the time, former President Olusegun Obasanjo said that the increase in the country’s population could become a “liability” if not well managed.
Leading the debate on the motion titled: “Need for the Federal Government to save funds for future generations,” Obidigwe said the Federal Government should make “conscious and concerted efforts” to secure the future of Nigerians.
He said the country’s population is expected to reach 401 million by 2050, which would require the government to set aside funds for the future.
“The Sovereign Wealth Fund of Nigeria (SWF) aims to save money for future generations, provide stabilization of funds to defend the economy against commodity (oil) price shocks and provide financing for essential infrastructure,” he said.
“Nigeria, with an estimated population of over 200 million, ranks 58th in the SWF rankings, four places behind Angola, an oil-producing African country with a population of 32.87 million. inhabitants in 2021 and assets of 3.2 billion dollars.
“This is a significant contrast to what other oil producers like Kuwait, which has $700 billion of ‘after-oil life funds’ different from its $41.7 billion of foreign exchange reserves, and Angola with $3.2 billion in assets – both as of March 2021.
“A country like Kuwait, with a population of 4.2 million and a projected growth of 5.3 million by 2050, has a future fund of $700 billion to support its people. future, while Nigeria, with an approximate population of over 200 million and an estimated population growth of 401 million people by 2050 has a fund for future generations of only $2.5 billion .
According to the legislator, the federal government “spent more than 1.8 trillion naira on debt service in the first five months of 2021, which represents about 98% of the total revenue generated during the same period. , which raises the question of where the savings are.”
The motion passed unanimously when put to the vote by Femi Gbajabiamila, speaker of the chamber.
Following this, the green chamber called on the federal government to focus more on “the non-oil sectors of the economy by adopting alternative sources of revenue to allow foreign flows from oil revenues to go directly to the SWF without affecting budget financing”.
The lawmakers also called on the federal government to “urgently control population growth with the policies necessary to fix the future population; and also obtain the approval of the national assembly before touching the savings of the country”.