Sylvanus Viashima, Jalingo
The state Program Coordinator of The Challenge Initiative in Taraba state Dr. Sarki Othman on Monday urged families to embrace family planning as a way of checking population explosion as the world marks the World Population Day today.
Dr Othman who spoke exclusively to Daily Sun in Jalingo said that at the rate the population was growing without a commensurate increase to resources that would make life meaningful and comfortable was alarming.
Othman said that while a large population was a great advantage to any nation, it was imperative to ensure that families have a controllable number of members.
He noted that ‘we can not turn a blind eye to the fact that most of the challenges we face today with regards to insecurity and others have a lot to do with uncontrolled family sizes.
‘You can not deny the fact that a large population translates to a large market and has a lot of economic advantages. However, we are also not unaware that a large population without commensurate resources to is a major disadvantage.
‘We have families that simply can not Carter for their members because the number outweigh the available resources. It is therefore imperative that families are given the right enlightenment and the option to control the number of children they have so that they can take care of and account for their children at all times.
‘We also know that it is risking the lives of the mother and even the children when there is no control of child spacing and all. We would continue to urge members of the public to avail themselves of this free services that is life saving and could possibly make the whole difference in the overall wellbeing of the family.
‘Our experience in Taraba is commendable but there is still much that needs to be done. In the last three years alone, we have over 758 thousand new acceptors in the state, that is outside those that had already embraced it before we came on board.’