Dr Ejike Oji, Chairman Association for the Advancement of Family Planning (AAFP) in Nigeria, on Monday said that family planning was a panacea to multidimensional poverty.
Oji said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja.
He urged Nigerians to embrace family planning for quality living in all ramifications.
“Nigeria, at the moment, is one of the countries with multidimensional poverty.
“This means that a lot of homes in the country lack access to not just money but quality healthcare, food, water, education etc. etc.,” he said.
The medical practitioner expressed optimism in the capability of family planning of reducing multidimensional poverty.
According to him, when parents plan well for child bearing and spacing, they will at least provide basic resources to their children and themselves.
Oji, who blamed the increase in insurgency and insecurity to lack of family planning, said children born without good planning were vulnerable to becoming miscreants.
He alleged that many of the terrorists or insurgents in the country were children born without planning.
He called on government at all levels to produce policies that would encourage family planning locally and nationally.
The National Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) by the National Bureau of Statistics says 133 million Nigerians, representing over 60 per cent of the country’s population, are multi-dimensionally poor.
It says they are deprived of no fewer than one essential survival needs which include, good health, good living standards, basic education and gainful employment. (NAN)
