Lead Campaign On Family Planning, Banigo Urges Media

The Rivers State Deputy Governor, Dr Ipalibo Harry Banigo has urged media organizations to spearhead the campaign to promote family planning in Nigeria.
Banigo stated this in a goodwill message in Government House, Port Harcourt, yesterday, in commemoration of the 2021 World Population Day.
According to the deputy governor, media organizations as agenda setters were best suited to bring the issues of family planning as a tool to halt population explosion and its attendant social vices to the front burner.
Banigo, who said the present economic reality in the country makes it imperative for all families not to indulge in unhealthy sexual habits, stressed that bearing children without proper planning for their education and economic wellbeing was dangerous.
“Mothers are the principal burden-bearers in child-bearing and upbringing, and therefore, suffer more economic, psychological and physical pressures in the family circle”, thedeputy governor stressed.
She said that lack of family planning was responsible for the huge number of out-of-school children, child labour, maternal mortality, poverty, family crises and other social vices.
The Harvard-trained public health physician, who reiterated the State Chief Executive, Chief NyesomWike’s commitment to reduce the disease burden of Rivers people to the barest minimum said, “the establishment of zonalhospitals, Mother and Child Hospital, rehabilitation of general hospitals across the state, abolition of user fees for People Living with HIV, the signing of the Rivers State Contributory Health Protection Programme Bill into law, the establishment of Rivers State University Teaching Hospital and the award of scholarship to medical students in the Rivers State University as well as the Pamo University of Medical Sciences to train medical manpower is highly commendable”.
Banigo, who is the chairman of the State Task Force on Immunization and Primary Healthcare, disclosed that ignorance, religion, traditional beliefs, unguarded sexual indulgence as well as the Covid-19 lockdown were factors that accelerated over-population in most developing countries.
She advised pregnant women and nursing mothers to visit healthcare facilities for immunization, antenatal care, family planning and counselling services.
It would be recalled that July 11 annually has been set aside to mark World Population Day.
The theme for this year is: “Impact of Covid-19 Pandemic on Fertility”.