THE IMPACT OF NIGERIA’S INCREASING POPULATION ON BOTH WOMEN AND MEN

Increasing population is a condition where the actual numbers of the people in a given demographic area starts to exceed the carrying capacity of its habitat. In common language, the term often refers to the relationship between the human population and its environment.
Overpopulation does not depend only on the size or density of the population, but on the ratio of population to available sustainable resources. It also depends on the way resources are used and distributed throughout the population.
This population growth can result from an increase in births, a decline in mortality rates due to medical advances, from an increase in immigration,  unsustainable biome and depletion of resources. It is possible for very sparsely populated areas to be overpopulated, as the area in question may have a meager or non-existent capability to sustain human life (e.g. a desert).
 The resources to be considered when evaluating whether an environment is overpopulated include clean water, clean air, food, shelter, warmth, and other resources necessary to sustain life. If the quality of human life is addressed, there may be additional resources considered, such as medical care, education, proper sewage treatment and waste disposal. Overpopulation places competitive stress on the basic life sustaining resources, leading to a diminished quality of life.
According to 2006 census figure, Nigeria's population stands at approximately 140 Million. The 1991 Population Census in Nigeria puts the population of the country at 88.9 Million people with an annual growth rate of 2.9 % .At this rate, Nigeria is one of the fastest growing populations in the world. Projections based on that growth rate showed that the population was 99.2 Million in 1995 and would be 178 .6 Million in 2015 and 235.6 Million in 2025 (NPC 1998)

Characteristics of an increasing population are:

• High infant and child mortality. High rates of infant mortality are caused by poverty. Rich countries with high population densities have low rates of infant mortality.
• Intensive factory farming to support large populations. It results in human threats including the evolution and spread of antibiotic resistant bacteria diseases, excessive air and water pollution, and new virus that infect humans.
• Increased chance of the emergence of new epidemics and pandemics. For many environmental and social reasons, including overcrowded living conditions, malnutrition and inadequate, inaccessible, or non-existent health care, the poor are more likely to be exposed to infectious diseases.
• Poverty coupled with inflation in some regions and a resulting low level of capital formation. Poverty and inflation are aggravated by bad government and bad economic policies. Many countries with high population densities have eliminated absolute poverty and keep their inflation rates very low.
• Low life expectancy in countries with fastest growing populations.
• Unhygienic living conditions for many based upon water resource depletion, discharge of raw sewage and solid waste disposal. However, this problem can be reduced with the adoption of sewers.
• Elevated crime rate due to drug cartels and increased theft by people stealing resources to survive.
• Conflict over scarce resources and crowding, leading to increased levels of warfare.
• Less Personal Freedom / More Restrictive Laws. Laws regulate interactions between humans. Law "serves as a primary social mediator of relations between people." The higher the population density, the more frequent such interactions become, and thus there develops a need for more laws and/or more restrictive laws to regulate these interactions. It is even speculated that democracy is threatened due to overpopulation, and could give rise to totalitarian style government.

THE IMPACT OF NIGERIA’S INCREASING POPULATION ON WOMEN:

·         Women will continue to die from pregnancy related problems mostly preventable conditions due to dwindling resources, few skilled attendants at birth, decay infrastructure and above all weak health system. Nigeria is recording the highest maternal death after India globally.

·         For obvious reasons, that there are more consumers than producers in the country and the more a woman is pregnant, the more the risk to her health and survival. She is vulnerable to physical injuries such as Vesico Vaginal Fistula, Genital Tear, Uterine Rupture and also severe loss of blood, Prolapse, Pile and Tiredness. Having many children without spacing also exposes the children to less attention and care and sharing of limited resources to cater for large family.

·         High fertility strongly increases a woman's lifetime risk of dying from pregnancy-related causes. 210 million women each year suffer life-threatening complications and a further 536,000 die in pregnancy, during childbirth or in the six weeks following delivery.  Many of these deaths could be avoided if women had access to modern family planning and, most importantly, felt sufficiently empowered to insist on its use.

·         Women lack rights, status or the power in the Nigerian society  and therefore there will be fewer spaces for education especially for girls thereby having very few professionally trained women.

·         Due to sanctioned culture, religion and social gender role for Nigerian women the rapid urban growth will create concentration of unemployed youths and that's on its own is a risk factor for civil conflicts, increase sexual activities through prostitutions, sexual harassment, assault, incest and rape. The end result would be, spread of Sexually Transmitted Infections including HIV/AIDS, unplanned pregnancies, unsafe abortion and adolescent mothers. All these problems will have direct negative effects on the Nigeria's Economy, Quality of Life and Sustainable Development.

·         Many girls aged 15-19 give birth each year, many lacking the social status or power to control their fertility. Many are forced into an early marriage. see the highest rates of adolescent fertility. Girls aged 15-19 from the poorest groups are three times more likely than their better-off peers to give birth in adolescence, and bear twice as many children during their lifetime. They are also 2-5 times as likely to die from pregnancy-related complications as women in their 20s, and their babies are less likely to survive as well.

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THE IMPACT OF NIGERIA’S INCREASING POPULATION ON MEN

·         Since men are regarded the superiors in Nigeria, the decision makers and their status predominant according to the cultural practices. They therefore dominate the sexual and reproductive health decisions making, have access to productive resources, property inheritance and use of family planning method.

·         Population growth can increase the risks of political instability and conflict, due to poverty, rapid urbanization, reduced supplies of farmland and water per capita, and pressures on already overstretched infrastructure and services.

·         As a result of increase in population, there is conflict over scarce resource, crowding and high competition over available resources, men are forced to migrate to other countries in search of green pastures.

In conclusion, the link between population growth and poverty is two-way: poverty often leads to higher fertility and population growth, while high fertility and high population rates can entrench poverty. The key is to replace this vicious circle with a virtuous one, where women's rights, and their capacity to exercise choice, alongside access to better healthcare and nutrition, and modern family planning, allow the poorest women to make informed decisions about family spacing and size. When they are able to do so, they consistently make choices that are good for their health and that of their children.

  ORJI IFEOMA AMAKA