Mbeere North MP Muriuki Njagagua wants women in Mbeere North to have more babies because his constituency has fallen below the minimum number of 130,000 persons. He said he would give Sh2,000 to each woman giving birth.
Njagagua is worried that the Mbeere are a declining minority and may vanish without a constituency.
But he is being very shortsighted. Having more children than they can afford will condemn the Mbeere to continued poverty. Far better to have a few children that are well spaced, properly educated and ultimately more prosperous.
There is also the ethical issue that women in Africa have on average 0.7 more children than they want because of the lack of easy access to family planning services. Why push women to have more kids just to keep an MP in his job?
Kenya's population is set to double by 2060 and to double again by 2100 when it will reach 160 million. Njagagua should ask himself if that number of citizens is manageable?
Quote of the day: "If we had more time for discussion we should probably have made a great many more mistakes."
The Russian revolutionary was born on November 7, 1879.
