Nigeria’s Minister of Finance, Zainab Ahmed on Wednesday debunked claims that the Federal Government was planning to reduce the number of children that a mother could have in Nigeria.

The minister was quoted as saying on Tuesday while responding to questions during a session at the 24th Nigerian Economic Summit in Abuja, that We have been engaging traditional rulers and other leaders. Specifically, we have found out that to be able to address one of the great challenges that we identified in the ERGP, which is the growth in our population, we need to engage these institutions.

“And we hope that with their support, we will get to a point where we can come out with the policy that limits the number of children that a mother can have because that is important for sustaining our growth.”

However, Ahmed, on her twitter handle, @ZShamsuna on Wednesday said the federal government had been engaging critical stakeholders like traditional and religious leaders to advise their members on child spacing.

“We never said we are placing a cap on childbirth. What is child spacing? This is a healthy practice of waiting between pregnancies,” she stated.