The Chief whip of the Osun state house of assembly, Hon. Tunde Olatunji, has suggested family restructuring amongst communities in Nigeria as a panacea to ending insecurity and economic predicament.
He noted that a large percentage of youths involved in crimes are from broken homes with fragmented family structure, and deficient parenting.
Olatunji, who was speaking during a media chat with journalists at the NUJ Correspondents’ chapel in Osogbo, the Osun state capital, noted that the Nigeria nation was being threatened by fragmented family setting with attendant erosion of societal values.
The lawmaker noted that the real restructuring towards socio-economic challenges of Nigeria must start from the families, through thorough reorientation to put the smallest social unit in the right form.
Olatunji also frowned at the rate at which Nigeria’s population was growing geometrically, while economic growth is at arithmetic sequence to the detriment of majority of the citizenry.
“Array of our socio-economic challenges, which presently threaten our survival as a nation emanate from the fragmented family setting in Nigeria, in which quality parenting is obviously absent.
“I make bold to say that over 80 per cent of young people in crime are either from broken homes or fragmented families. That is a serious factor that continued to aggravate our National security challenges and thereby threaten our corporate entity.
“This issue must be tackled holistically by addressing the menace of lopsided family structure as a way of finding lasting solution to our socioeconomic challenges “, he said.
He further advised the Federal government to control the trend of increase in the population, which according to him, comes without commensurate growth in productivity.
Olatunji opined that the recent figure that puts Nigeria’s population at over 200million should be a thing of great concern to all Nigerians, in the absence of advancement in the country’s level of productivity.
“A constant increase in the population of a country like Nigeria is a big disadvantage to us if it continues to rise only in figure and not in human capital.
“It is only a corresponding increase in human capital in a country with population explosion that can bring about favourable economic condition through increase in productivity, which is it’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
“While is it necessary for the government to dish out policies aimed at controlling birth rate the way it was done in China, Singapore, and others, Nigerians must also impose self policies on themselves to check population explosion,” he said.
