CHAPTER ONE
Introduction
1.1   Background to the Study
The rapid growth of world population in recent times has received widespread attention especially in Africa where the highest crude-birth rates are found. The present population of Nigeria is between 90 and 100 million persons or perhaps even larger with the annual growth rate of 3.3 percent (Oni, 2006).
If the current population estimate is something to go by, much population analysis already regards Nigeria as being over populated. Based on the contest, the Federal Government recently formulated a policy on the nations population. These include management and control of our human population with guided skills, goals, policies, plans, programmes and projects for the improvement of human quality (Planned Parenthood Federation of Nigeria 2010).
We cannot dismiss as presumptuous the adverse effects of uncontrolled reproduction on women and such risk factors as childbirth before 18 years or after 35 years of age where as in the rich developed nations of the world, population growth rate has diminished as women and men have chosen to have fewer children, in developing nations like Nigeria, the growth rate remains high as only few couples limit the number of their children. Global and Regional Estimates of the Incidence of Unsafe Abortion and Associated Mortality in (2000) WHO (2004). This is probably because children are seen as the most valuable assets from God as such they are accepted whenever they come.
There is the concern that Natural resources are not unlimited and uncontrolled therefore, population growth may result in crisis, statistics which statistics central statistical Agency: ICF International (2006). Shows that majority of the world’s people are neither adequately fed nor housed. The sad reality is that people that are less able to care for their children are having more children than those who have the means to support them (Shuaib $ ï Oghdoh 2010).