Four Kids, No Job, No Phone: A Bus Ride That Exposes Nigeria’s Family Planning Failures

On a recent afternoon bus ride from Aba to Umuahia, I found myself caught up in a moment that was both touching and troubling.

Among the passengers was a woman travelling with four young children, with no phone, and no clear plan for where she was headed.

I sat down in my little corner as I watched her story unfold quietly but powerfully, shining a harsh light on issues of family planning, poverty, and responsibility that affect many Nigerians every day.

The woman had told a fellow passenger that she needed to make a phone call at Ubakala Junction along the route for further directions to her destination but she didn’t have a phone herself. Not even a Nokia torch. So, she relied on the kindness of this passenger to remind her when they got to Ubakala so she could get down and make the call.

When the bus finally arrived at Ubakala junction, where the road splits and traders and commuters throng the streets, the driver, without stopping, drove past the spot where she was supposed to get down.

The passenger only remembered a little too late to shout a reminder, but the bus had moved on. The woman was forced to alight further down the road, near a well-known roadside shop with her three small children trailing behind her while she carried the fourth in her arms.

Without a phone and nowhere else to go, she stood there—vulnerable and helpless. Meanwhile, on the bus, the passenger frantically tried to reach the contact number the woman had given her, but the calls kept failing.

Unfortunately, Passengers began grumbling as some were impatient for the journey to continue. The driver, balancing time and complaints, prepared to move on, leaving the woman behind. After several attempts, the call finally connected. The contact promised to come pick her up, and only then did the bus move on.

What could have been just a small inconvenience opened a floodgate of conversation among the passengers as Some expressed deep frustration.

“How can a grown woman with no job and no phone have four children?” one passenger asked.

“If the husband can’t even get her a basic Nokia touch phone, how do they expect to manage? It’s like trying to build a house on sand,” another passenger said in Igbo.

The driver offered his take. “Many believe children are a blessing, no matter the hardship. For some, a big family is wealth.”

Yet, most passengers were unsparing in their criticism. They stressed that having many children without the means to care for them is not a blessing but a heavy burden.

“She should have stopped after two kids. You can’t feed a crowd with an empty pot, she’s busy allowing oga continuously shoot goals inside her back to back,” said another.

That moment on a crowded bus brought my mind to something so little but seems to be a nationwide problem. Nigeria’s rapid population growth, coupled with poverty and low contraceptive use, threatens not only individual families but the country’s future. Reports from the National Population Commission show that while awareness about family planning is growing, cultural, religious, and economic barriers remain strong.

At this point, it is no longer a matter of assigning blame—whether to the husband for failing to better provide for his family, the wife for continuously getting pregnant despite their hardship, or the country for its weak support systems and broken structures. The reality is that all three forces—personal, familial, and systemic are intertwined, leaving too many families trapped in cycles of struggle.

The woman’s struggle was more than a personal plight; it became a symbol of the pressing need for responsible parenthood and social support. As the saying goes, “It takes a village to raise a child,” but what happens when that village itself is struggling to survive?

That day, I was reminded how personal stories can reveal deep societal truths. If a mother with four children can be stranded without a phone in a place as busy as Ubakala, what hope do many others have?

Nigeria must face these realities openly and urgently. Because sometimes, the smallest things—like a simple phone call—can make all the difference between safety and vulnerability. And as the old adage says, “A stitch in time saves nine.”

Four Kids, No Job, No Phone: A Bus Ride That Exposes Nigeria’s Family Planning Failures is first published on The Whistler Newspaper