The United Nations Children’s Fund has called on the state government to sustain birth registration to build on the successes recorded so far.
This is as it called on the federal government to decentralised to the local government level to improve access and ensure that more Nigerian children acquire legal identity.
UNICEF Child Protection Specialist, Denis Onoise, made the call on Tuesday at a Birth Registration Media Dialogue organised for journalists in Lagos.
Onoise, disclosed that about 24.8 million children under five had been registered across Nigeria.
He stressed that state and local government services must be decentralised to ensure that children, particularly those in underserved communities, could easily obtain birth certificates.
He noted that legal identity was essential for generating official records, establishing a child’s right to recognition before the law and providing continuous data for planning, monitoring and evaluating government programmes.
Onoise added that reliable birth registration data is also critical to the implementation of social protection, healthcare, education and housing programmes.
He identified limited access to civil registration, inadequate registration centres, inefficient registration processes and insufficient financial, human and material resources as some of the challenges hampering birth registration in Nigeria.
He also cited the direct and indirect costs associated with registration and obtaining birth certificates as barriers preventing some families from registering their children.
The UNICEF specialist said that the absence of birth registration could expose children to exclusion from education, healthcare and other essential services as well as increase their vulnerability to child labour, trafficking, abuse and exploitation.
Onoise, however, stressed the need for the federal government to reform existing laws and regulatory framework, decentralise birth registration to the local government level and digitise the registration process.
He also called for interoperability and sharing of data among government agencies, integration of birth registration with primary healthcare services and increased social mobilisation to raise awareness about its benefits.
UNICEF Chief of Lagos Field Office, Celine Lafoucriere, citing statistics from the National Bureau of Statistics, said about 3.5 million children across Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Osun, Ondo, Ekiti and Edo states lack birth certificates and legal identity.
She said, ‘Right now, across your various states, some babies born even this morning will end this day with no name on any government record. This translates to 3.5 million children with no birth certificate, no legal identity, and no proof on any record that they were ever born across Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Osun, Ondo, Ekiti and Edo states.’
‘A birth certificate is not a piece of paper. It is a child’s ticket into school. It is what allows a doctor to put a name on a patient file. It is how a family proves their child is theirs. Without it, a child cannot vote when they grow up, cannot get a passport or inherit land. They go through life having to prove they exist over and over again.’
The UNICEF boss said that Lagos State, in collaboration with the National Population Commission was among the states that had launched birth registration for children under one, adding that the birth certificate issued under the initiative now comes with a National Identification Number.
She, however, said the registration gap remained wide across the region, noting that many parents were unaware that birth registration was free and could be done at health facilities and through digital platforms.
The UNICEF boss called for greater media support to increase public awareness and encourage parents to register their children, urging journalists to use their platforms to promote birth registration.
Earlier, the National Population Commission Director, Lagos State Kekere Ekun Sherifdeen, said the commission had commenced full digitisation of birth registration in the country.
He said that the commission had previously operated a manual system before gradually adopting both manual and digital methods as part of efforts to modernise the registration process.
Sherifdeen noted that NPC had now moved to full digitisation, describing the development as a major step towards improving birth registration and strengthening Nigeria’s civil registration system.
He stressed the importance of birth registration to national growth and development, saying accurate birth records were critical for effective government planning, formulation and implementation of policies and programmes.