Minister of Power, Works and Housing, Babatunde Fashola, has revealed why he and his wife, Dame Abimbola, has only two children. According to him, he couldn’t have more because their income was not growing.

The minister revealed this on Thursday, at the second edition of the Babatunde Raji Fashola GABFEST in Lagos.

He 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 N10, my share was now N5. 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 percent, 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 said.

Speaking on the need for control over Nigeria’s escalating population, Fashola said, “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.’”

He urged Nigerians to bear children based on their financial strength so as to cater well for themselves.

“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,” Fashola said.