Religious Leaders Consultative Forum On Harnessing Demographic Dividend For Sustainable Development In Nigeria: The Role Of Muslim Religious Leaders

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SPEECH BY HIS EXCELLENCY PROF. YEMI OSINBAJO, SAN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA, AT THE RELIGIOUS LEADERS CONSULTATIVE FORUM ON HARNESSING DEMOGRAPHIC DIVIDEND FOR SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN NIGERIA: THE ROLE OF MUSLIM RELIGIOUS LEADERS, ABUJA, SEPTEMBER 13, 2018

PROTOCOLS

I am very pleased to be here at this very special forum, on perhaps one of the most crucial subjects in our national development story, harnessing the demographic dividend for sustainable development.

And gathered to share ideas are more than 200 Muslim religious leaders from across Nigeria, Development Partners, Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), and Members of the Diplomatic Corps.

This engagement is timely, and a demonstration of the collective responsibility we share – as government and non-governmental actors – for building a better future for Nigeria.

The theme focuses on the role of leaders of the Islamic faith in this endeavour – ‘Harnessing Demographic Dividend: The role of Muslim Leaders’. The approach to this issue is, I must say, an inspired one, the express acknowledgement of the general and specific roles that religious leaders have to play in the implementation of development policies and programmes.

But in playing these roles, leaders themselves need to be exposed to the prevailing policy issues, options, ideas and to test these ideas against their own beliefs, and also to discover ways to project these ideas through the various populations that they influence. This is the important business that our gathering has been engaged in since yesterday when this forum opened. Harnessing Nigeria’s Demographic Dividend requires deliberate, sustained and informed action.

This is why, in line with the AU guidelines on harnessing Demographic Dividend, a comprehensive Roadmap to guide policy, practice and actions towards harnessing Demographic Dividend in Nigeria was launched on July 6th, 2017 with the focus: Investing in Youth to Harness Demographic Dividend. The Road Map has four pillars namely:

– Employment and entrepreneurship,

-Education, skills and competency development;

-Health and wellbeing;

-And rights, governance and youth empowerment.

The successful implementation of the Road Map requires all-inclusive and robust stakeholders’ engagements/participation such that this Consultative Forum offers and we have seen already that there are several ideas that we need internalize, several policy measures that we need to understand in order to better inform the various publics that we influence.

Relevant demographics show the prospects and potentials of a prosperous future for Nigeria, if appropriate and timely actions are in place. Nigeria’s population size is currently estimated at over 198 million, the largest in Africa.

About 63 percent of the population is under the age of 25 years, 33 percent between 10 and 24, and 54.8 percent of working age (15-64). 51 percent of the female population are in their reproductive ages (ages 15-49).

And it is estimated that by 2050 Nigeria will be the 3rd most populous country in the world, after India and China.

Of course, the reverse side of Nigeria’s rich demographic potential is the much-talked-about ‘population time bomb,’ or as some would say demographic threats.

Total Fertility Rate (TFR) has remained high over the last three decades and currently stand at 5.5 births per woman; modern Contraceptive Prevalence Rate (CPRm) is very low at 10 percent with 16 percent unmet need for Family Planning (FP). Twenty-three percent of our adolescents (ages 15-19 years) have commenced childbearing and Child Marriage still persists at 18 percent.

These figures vary across the North and the South, for example, Total Fertility Rate is lowest in the South West (4.5) and highest in the North East (6.3) and North West (6.7), respectively with Bauchi at 8.1 and Sokoto at 7.0.

To avoid the time-bomb scenario, we must act with urgency to build an economy that can support that population, provide jobs and economic opportunity, education and healthcare, hope and optimism.

Let me quote from a UNPFA document on the subject, “Countries with the greatest demographic advantages for development are those entering a period in which the working age population will have a low proportion of young dependents, and the benefits of good health, quality education and decent employment. The smaller number of children per household generally leads to larger investments per child, more freedom for women to enter the formal workforce, and more household savings for a secure old age, when this happens, the national economic payoff can be substantial, leading to a demographic dividend.”

In effect, the gaining an economic advantage from our population size and makeup involves a national consensus around some ideas. The first is that the resources of families and of countries are finite. They are not limitless. So it is the business of heads of families at the micro level and governments at the macro level to prioritize the education and health of their families, but in so doing recognize that we can invest more per child with more deliberate planning.

As for governments our work is well cut out for us. The Federal government has since 2015 prioritized the problems of speedily getting the largest numbers of our people out of poverty and its implications for the critical human development issues especially, healthcare, education and jobs. There is demonstrably a clear correlate between living standards and access to reproductive health services.

We are now two years into the most ambitious Social Protection Programme in the history of Nigeria, with a provision in the budget of N500billion. We are in answer to the malnutrition and stunting feeding over 9.2 children in public primary schools daily in 25 States and this month to 26 states. We have now employed 500,000 graduates in our N-PoWer programme, and we are giving microcredit to over 2million petty traders in every State.

We are also targeting our cash transfers to over 400,000 of the poorest Nigerians our aim is to get to a million of the poorest families. We are investing in present and future generations, raising school enrolment and child immunization rates. The emphasis on young people as contained in the Demographic Dividend Road Map is consistent with one of the strategic objectives of our Economic Recovery and Growth Plan, of “Investing in our people” through social inclusion, job creation and youth empowerment and improved human capital.

The truth of the matter is that the work of ensuring that a large population a significant proportion of which is poor, the working of getting that population out of poverty is a daily and a deliberate work. It is one that involves planning, commitment and managing the resources ins such a way that everyone benefits from it, it is one that requires fiscal discipline.

Ladies and gentlemen, as religious leaders, you play very vital roles in the social, cultural and economic lives of the people. You shape attitudes, opinions and behaviours of large numbers of our people, and there is no real progress or transformation that can happen in any society and our society without your participation, involvement or endorsement.

More than ever before you are needed as voices of change, in everything from improving maternal, newborn and child health in Nigeria, to encouraging investment in education, particularly of women and girls, educating citizens on the importance of family planning for births spacing, and advocating against early/child marriage.

Very importantly, you also have a responsibility to hold governments to account, especially holding the government to account in managing the resources faithfully and not stealing the resources of the country, and ensuring that the resources go round and met the needs of the people, at all levels – Local, State and Federal.

Let me note that it is inevitable during the course of the discussions here. You will hear divergent views and opinions that are vastly different from the ones that you may hold dear or which you may consider being correct. What is most important is that we must be open-minded and willing to learn even from views you may not necessarily agree with, and for the goal of the Forum – strengthening the capacity of our leaders especially our religious leaders to advocate and influence – to be achieved.

And I encourage all to be guided by the outcomes, as we join hands to firmly set Nigeria on the path of prosperity and progress.

Let me again thank the UNFPA for their leadership in this crucial dialogue. And the Nigerian Supreme Council for Islamic Affairs, FOMWAN, the Muslim Students Society of Nigeria, who, recognizing the importance of this meeting, have honoured us with their presence here today.

I wish you fruitful deliberations for the rest of the dialogue and safe travels back to your various destinations at the end of the forum.

Thank you very much.