LIFESTYLE Culture

Only 40% Nigerian Births Registered, NPC Raises Alarm

by admin on | 2026-08-11 12:35:59

Share: Facebook | Twitter | Whatsapp | Linkedin Visits: 48

---

Only 40% Nigerian Births Registered, NPC Raises Alarm

By Ahmad Sirajo Makama, Abuja

The National Population Commission (NPC), in collaboration with its development partners, has called for stronger partnerships to address Nigeria’s significant birth registration gap, with only about 40 per cent of births currently registered in the country.

NPC Chairman, Dr Aminu Yusuf, made the call during the commemoration of the 2026 Africa Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) Day at the NPC headquarters in Abuja.

Yusuf said more than five million children are born in Nigeria annually, stressing that the low registration coverage made it necessary to take civil registration services closer to communities.

He said the most recent Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey showed that only about 40 per cent of births were registered, while death registration coverage remained unacceptably low.

According to him, every birth, death and other vital event must be captured in the electronic Civil Registration and Vital Statistics system to enable Nigeria to develop a complete and reliable national database.

Yusuf said Nigeria’s transition to a fully digital CRVS system on July 1, 2026, through the VitalReg platform, marked the end of manual registration and a major shift in the way vital events are recorded across the country.

He said the digital system had improved the security, efficiency, reliability and accessibility of civil registration, while reducing duplication through automated verification and unique identifiers.

Yusuf disclosed that the Commission entered into a Partnership Compact Agreement in January 2025 with the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON), National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), UNICEF and Bankforte Technologies Limited to decentralise civil registration, improve interoperability and expand access to digital registration.

He said the NPC was also working with the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), state governments and health institutions to integrate birth registration into routine health services, allowing children to be registered as close as possible to the point of birth.

Yusuf said about 4,000 of the country’s 8,809 wards had already been reached with digital civil registration services under the Partnership Compact, with efforts ongoing to extend coverage to all wards.

The Commission, he added, currently has more than 4,000 functional registration centres across the 774 local government areas and is expanding the network to approximately 8,000 centres nationwide.

He said the expansion, combined with the VitalReg platform, would reduce the distance, cost and delays associated with registration and help prevent children and other vital events from being left outside the national database.

Yusuf described civil registration as a foundation for legal identity, access to services, protection of rights and national development.

The 2026 Africa CRVS Day is being commemorated under the theme: “New CRVS Decade (2026–2036): Consolidating the Gains of APAI-CRVS and Securing the Future of Civil Registration and Vital Statistics in Africa through Integration, Decentralisation and Digitalisation.”

Yusuf said Nigeria’s digital transition aligned with the continental agenda and reaffirmed the Commission’s commitment to building an integrated, decentralised and technology-driven registration system.

Earlier, UNICEF Chief Child Protection Officer, Natalie McCauly, called for stronger integration, decentralisation and digitalisation of Nigeria’s civil registration system to ensure that every child is registered at birth and recognised before the law.

McCauly said birth registration was a fundamental right of every child and often the first legal recognition accorded to a child by the state.

She said a birth certificate provides proof of identity and forms the foundation for access to healthcare, education, social protection, child protection and legal protection throughout a person’s life.

UNICEF acknowledged progress made by Nigeria in expanding birth registration through collaboration among the NPC, NIMC, ALGON, development partners and communities.

The organisation said digital birth registration services were now available in more than 4,000 wards, while targeted interventions had reached millions of children, including those in rural, hard-to-reach and humanitarian settings.

However, UNICEF warned that many children remained at risk of growing up without proof of legal identity.

It called for stronger integration of civil registration with health, identity management, social protection, education and justice systems, as well as the expansion of services to communities where families live.

Also speaking, Deputy Director, Civil Registration, NPC, Obodo Adaku, said the Commission was leveraging health facilities and community structures to improve birth registration coverage.

She said the NPC was working with the NPHCDA to make birth registration part of routine immunisation services at government health facilities.

According to her, nurses at immunisation points are now expected to check whether children have birth certificates and facilitate registration where necessary.

She said the Commission had also built the capacity of about 4,000 community-level registrars through the ALGON-supported partnership to conduct birth registration across wards.

Adaku said the Commission was developing a community birth alert system, with UNICEF support, through which traditional institutions, religious bodies, community-based organisations and other community structures would alert registrars whenever a birth occurred outside health facilities.

She said once a birth was registered, the record could be linked with the individual’s National Identification Number (NIN), strengthening the country’s identity management architecture.