In this article, local perceptions of family planning programs and federal population policy are examined, based on responses to a childbirth survey and on interviews with a range of individuals in one northern Nigerian town. The respondents' differing perceptions of the relationship between population and national development reflect distinctive ideas about political authority, population policy, and family planning programs, about development, and about domestic and international political affairs. Local suspicions about the Nigerian population policy and family planning programs suggest that they cannot be implemented in isolation from broader political and economic concerns. This distrust has ramifications for current family planning programs and reproductive health initiatives undertaken by Western-sponsored aid projects.