REV. FR. THOMAS MALTHUS WAS RIGHT AFTER ALL

          On my way to a burial ceremony at the village on a fateful day, I noticed that most compounds I passed had one poster of a dead family member either young or old. Some compounds even had 2 or more of such posters. Almost every Friday or Saturday, there is a burial going on somewhere .Despite this perceived high rate of
death, we still come out on the road and it's like the number of people around us is increasing. Pondering over this trend, I recalled the Malthusian population theory which we studied in Secondary school, Economics precisely. The theory was proposed by Rev. Fr Thomas Malthus.

            In case you have forgotten or you never heard about it, the theory states that as food production increase in arithmetic progression, the population increases in geometric progression and that there will come a time when nature will be forced to reduce the world's population by itself through natural disasters such as earthquakes, famine, floods, hurricanes, typhoons, drought and other forms of natural disasters. He explained that the population is increasing more than the available means of sustenance and that with time; the world will reduce it's population by itself.

      From recent World Bank data, the population of Nigeria stands at about 180 million people, while the world in general has about 6 billion people, with the population growth rate in developing countries doubling almost every year. If not for contraceptives and other birth control initiatives adopted by developed countries, the situation probably would have been worse.

           The result of this as Malthus predicted is the increase in the rate of natural disasters that occur around the world. For instance, the flood that took place in 2013 in our country Nigeria killed many people. Fr. Malthus was criticized for not having foresight and seeing that in the future that technological advancement will boost food production to meet with population growth and introduce some birth control measures. Even though technology has done its own part, it has boosted food production and birth control methods has been introduced, but this has worked only in developed countries, technologically advanced countries mostly countries of the white yet we still hear of severe natural disasters in such countries. For instance, the wildfire of California USA, the 9.3 magnitude earthquake of Japan, hurricanes named after girls, Katrina and Rita e.t.c, sometimes nature decides to use a human agent; a frustrated person picks up a gun, shooting at  people for no just reason; a pilot crashes a plane full of people for no just reason; I believe all these are ways nature uses in reducing the human population as Fr Malthus had predicted. 

           Now, if these population reducing disasters took place in countries that had the so called technology which was the main point of criticizing Malthus, what then is the fate of countries like Nigeria that are technologically backward. Well the result is clear; we may not have earthquakes, or hurricanes or typhoons, but calculate the number of people that have died through accidents while rushing to provide food for themselves or their families.

           For example, Mr. Obi is uneducated, he has no job, his small farm hustle pays, and he buys a bus. His mates got married but not him, the money he makes from his transport business is not enough to get married because bride price is too costly, the Girl’s family wants to get back all the money they spent on her upbringing from her potential husband, Mr. Obi decides to drive faster so that he can increase the number of trips he makes in a day. One day while over speeding, he knocks down a young girl and the girl dies. He settles the girl's burial rites. Months later, he finally gets married. He loves his wife so much and makes her a housewife. Within 6 years, his wife already has 5 children, yes they have to go to school. Mr. Obi starts his speed again to get money to provide for the children one day he hits a trailer and dies, his children starves, some of them die before getting to puberty. 

        That aside, Floods that took lives have happened; there are no jobs for the youth and with lack of patience, they get employed by Nature, to help in reducing the population as Malthus had predicted, they pick up Guns and turn to terrorists, kidnappers, and criminals and kill people (population reducing). One day they themselves are killed (population still reducing).

           In India, Libya, young girls are dying from HIV while looking for what to eat. Ebola rocks Africa, kills many and prevents others from going out to look for what to eat. After a while, Nature then finds out that these people are starting to survive once they are born due to advancement in technology, it send mosquitoes with Zika virus to ensure that they are not even born at all, babies dies people become scared of becoming pregnant.

With all these happening, I'm really forced to say that Malthus was right after all.