Plateau State Governor, Caleb Mutfwang, says the 19 northern governors in Nigeria will kick-start conversations on the explosive birth rate in the region.
He said measures must be put in place to care for the education and welfare of the children being born in the region.
“We are sitting on a time bomb,” Mutfwang said on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily on Tuesday, warning that the lack of infrastructure for human capital development of the youth bulge in the region may escalate banditry and terrorism ubiquitous in the three geopolitical zones of northern Nigeria.
He also said some of the hoodlums who disrupted the “peaceful” #EndBadGovernance protests in the state were external elements from outside the state.
The governor said the elite in the north failed to take responsibility for the young population in the region, allowing some criminally minded persons to control the youth bulge and indoctrinate them into insurgency and banditry.
Mutfwang said, “We don’t have an option. At this point, we must take the bull by the horn. I am pretty sure that a lot of the northern elite do not have their children on the streets; they send their children to elite schools locally and internationally.
“If that is the situation, it is not so much about how many children you give birth to, but that we must be able to put measures in place that if you give birth to children, you must take responsibility for those children. It must be a carrot-and-stick strategy that we’ll put in place.
“I don’t want to say this is the maximum number of children you must have. That is a dialogue that is beyond me but I can assure you that from the Forum of Northern Governors, we are going to initiate this dialogue. We are going to make sure we broaden it to a national consultation.
“We must know that religion has a responsibility to society and we must ensure that religion does not become a setback to society. We must then be able to bring religious leaders in tandem with global realities.”
The governor said the government will hold parents accountable for out-of-school children, assuring residents of the state that no willing child will be uneducated by the time he leaves office in 2027.
Mutfwang said one of the key ways to fight poverty is agriculture and food security but unfortunately banditry has been a challenge. He said lands must be reclaimed and put to productive use to ensure food security.
