Why my wife and I decided to stop at two children – Fashola reveals

Nigeria’s Minister of Power, Works, and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, last week Thursday, revealed the reason, he and his wife, Abimbola decided to have only two children.

He made this revelation at the second edition of the Babatunde Raji Fashola GABFEST, which held in Lagos.

Fashola said that the family’s resources were not commensurate with the number of children that they had.

At the event, which was monitored on Channels Television, Fashola said, “Do you know why I have two? When I was alone, all my money was my own. When Abimbola decided to marry me, she would just bring a bill. So in my ten Naira, my share was now five Naira. We are doing fifty-fifty. She was earning money and I never asked her what she was doing with her money.

“Then Ademola came and my share became one-third, then Olayinka came and I became 25 per cent, then I knew… and said, “Madam, let’s stop”.

“She said, “I thought, you were not going to bring it up, because I was thinking that way too”. So, we just agreed, no more, because the income wasn’t growing.”

Fashola was reacting to the conversation of the panellists at the event, which had dwelt on Nigeria’s population and the need for control.

He added, “The panellists have told us, we have to manage our numbers, if your income is not growing, you can’t just be having children.  And it is a conversation, we must have a nation, it is a serious conversation. If truly, we agree that there is poverty, if truly, we agree that there is unemployment, then a time must come when, as a people, when we must have a consensus and say, “Let’s slow this down a bit.”

“So, that we can deal with those we are here. Otherwise, those who we are bringing in are coming into what? That is not such a difficult matter to agree on. So, you guys, who are still out there, doing that business, slow it down ehn. Just slow it down, I didn’t say stop it.

“You know Abimbola and I stopped this business 18 years ago. So, it is not every time that you have to score a goal.

“We will leave it there but we need to control those numbers and those, who say “culture”. That culture is an unproductive culture,  It is a culture that will tie us down in backwardness and we have to leave it behind.

“If you can manage 20, by all means, if your resources can manage it, go ahead but if your resources can manage only two and you go and have ten, ha!

“We will leave that matter. But we have to confront these things, they have held us back for so long.”