With a goal to reduce the level of teenage pregnancy and abortion in the country, the Nigerian Urban Reproductive Health Initiative (NURHI), has called for access to contraception as Nigeria joins the rest of the world to commemorate World Contraception Day (WCD).
 

Religious inclination and cultural beliefs are holding back service providers in Nigeria from encouraging unmarried young people to prevent unwanted pregnancy through family planning.

 
Dimos Sakellaridis, Country Director, DKT International, said this on Tuesday in an interview with PREMIUM TIMES against the backdrop of the World Contraception Day.

 
The Day is usually celebrated on September 26.

Only 2.1 per cent of married women in Bauchi State are using a modern method of contraceptive, which is lower than the national rate of 10 per cent.
 
This was disclosed yesterday by the Country Director of Health Policy Plus, with funding from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Mr. Onoriode Ezire, who noted that because of the low practice of contraceptive in the state, the population of Bauchi is likely to reach 26 million by 2050 as against the present population of about five million.
 

NOT everyone thinks birth control is a blessing. Boko Haram, a jihadist group that terrorises north-eastern Nigeria, deems artificial contraception to be a product of infidel learning, and therefore forbidden. Its ideologues also believe that females should avoid school, marry early (sometimes while still children) and have lots of babies. In the dwindling areas the jihadists control, women have no choice.