As Nigeria grapples with surge in it's population and the challenge in the absence of the current population data, a new initiative tagged "Nigeria Population Matters" has reached out to the community of Unguwar Marafa on the need to have a mini census within their communities.
North East Coordinator of the Nigeria Population Matters Amb. Comfort Ene Attah informed the community that the objective of the advocacy visit was to gain support and cooperation of community leaders on Nigeria’s population challenges and way forward by 2024.
Part of the campaign carried out by the visiting team was the introduction of population matters and child birth spacing in relation to human capital development.
The Nigeria Population Matters team further stressed on the importance of having an accurate population data for effective funds allocation to communities for social and human capital development.
According to the advocacy team, some of the current hardship among families include large family size and the inability of family caregivers to cater for basic needs.
"Nigeria is currently depending on the 2006 population census to make decisions, this is not representing the growing population in Nigeria. We want to sensitize your community members to support the mini census that will soon be introduced to give room for support from other countries", said Amb. Comfort Attah, the North East Coordinator of the Initiative.
In his response, the community leader of Unguwar Marafa, Mallam Sirajo Mamuda appreciated the Coordinator of the Nigeria Population Matters initiative and expressed the gratitude to the team for choosing his community on this project, pledging all necessary support needed to make it happen.
Another member of the Community, Mallam Bello Jumba, who is a member of the cabinet in the community structure, also applauded the choice of their community, pointing out that, "we now understand the importance of managing population and imbibing the culture of child birth spacing. We initially thought it was to reduce the number of our people. After your advocacy, I just realised that such activities are aimed at reducing the current hardship through support from other funders".
Mallam Jumba also pledged his family’s support anytime the team comes for sensitization activity.
Other community leaders that spoke during the advocacy visit include: Sirajo Mamuda, Yusuf Jibrin, Bello Jumba, and Lawal Umar, pledging their full support to the team in their future engagements with the community.
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