The Osun State governor, Mr. Rauf Aregbesola has blamed the rampant poverty in the land on the penchant of Nigerians to having too many children. He said this at an event in Osogbo to celebrate the 2016 Internnational Day for Eradication of Poverty.
According to him, when couples limit the number of children they have, it would go a ong way in eradicating poverty, encouraging couples to adopt family planning. ‘…we should embrace family planning. I am not asking you to kill the ones you have given birth to but we should stop the erroneous belief that we would be sick if we don’t give birth to all the children in our body.’
Other reasons for poverty according to Aregbesola include laziness and over-dependence on foreign products. ‘Rice was not a staple food in Nigeria before 1980. Ofada rice was the only rice eaten during festivities. We should return to the time when we were eating indigenous rice. We have cassava, plantain, beans and yam. We should return to the time when we were eating our indigenous foods.’ Punch reports Aregbesola as saying.
The organizing agency, Community and Social Development Programme, lauded Aregbesola’s efforts on eradicating poverty which included paying counterpart funds for community development projects.
