Plan Our Population Against Poverty In Order To Achieve UN SDGs

The freedom which was bestowed upon us by Ghana’s Independence hero, Osagyefo Dr. Kwame Nkrumah, has been misused and it is time to control that freedom in Ghana. We can no longer hide under the Christian delusion that God will provide (Nyame bεyε, as they say). One area where we can control our freedom is the size of our population, and this has to be backed by a stringent law.

The core aim of UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (UNSDGs) is about improving the quality of life through responsible planning. In Scandinavia, couples do not need a law to plan the size of their families because they already know and believe in the quality of life than the quantity of goats and pigs population. Governments in the Nordic countries even beg their people to have children.

In Ghana, you will find poor couples with more than five children. There are also sexually confident men who will go on rampant sexual ecstasy to impregnate as many young girls as they can without bearing any responsibility. The responsibility is directed towards an uncle or a brother who is in abroad or living in Ghana with some middle income job. This brings too much pressure on those who are working.

Many Ghanaians are used to the old system of big family sizes; couples with five children or seven children and some politicians even have over twelve children. Our kings who are supervising over the sale of lands could even have twenty or more children. For how long can we wait before we control the size of our poverty-stricken population?

Scarcity of resources means that we cannot allow our population to explode. Think about the thousands of unemployed graduates, the economic hardship on families and the double-track SHS system in Ghana. The economic burden on every successive government can be reduced when we have effective family planning policies in place.

J.J. Rawlings was the best advocate of family planning and he indeed lives by a good example. I remember in the late 80s, how his PNDC government intensified family planning education, even to the rural areas. His effort was not backed by law and fell into deaf ears. We expect the government of Nana Addo-Dankwah Akufo Addo, to come up with clear-cutting family planning policies to redeem Ghana from abject poverty.