The National Population Commission (NPC) said it is targeting no fewer than 156,230 children under the age of 5 for its digital birth registration programme in Ekiti State.
State Director of the NPC, Dr (Mrs) Olufunbi Olowokere who made the disclosure said the digital birth registration drive is a collaborative effort between the commission and the UNICEF, marking a significant milestone towards ensuring every child’s right to identity, protection, health, education and social security is guaranteed.
Addressing a news conference organised by the Ekiti State government in Ado Ekiti on DBR and VASA, Olowokere who noted that NPC is also being supported by the state government, said the digital registration for children of age 0-5, which started in August this year will end in December 2024.
While clarifying that the exercise is not a population census but rather a digital system for registering births, she stressed that it came with lots of advantages including connection to National Identity and Management Commission database and generation of the child’s National Identity Number (NIN) and also captured immunized children.
She added that such benefits also include facilitating access to education and social services, child identity, nationality and name, child protection supporting and anti-trafficking efforts, accurate planning and resource allocation for children’s programmes, among others
The state NPC boss who added that the initiative aligns with the child rights policy, revealed that 779 ad-hoc volunteers have been recruited and currently working in the field.
“So also, I would like to highlight that we have a well-established routine for birth registration, which caters to children from birth to 17 years of age on a continuous basis,” she added.
According to her, trained NPC registrars have been stationed in all NPC offices, hospitals, health centers in all the 16 local government areas of the state to ensure seamless registration.
Olowokere also informed on the ongoing Nigeria Verbal and Social Autopsy (VASA) Survey which follows the Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (HDHS).
“It is aimed at providing comprehensive data on the causes of under-five and maternal deaths across the country with the goal of informing policy decision makers that will improve maternal and child’s health outcome in Nigeria,” she added.
For his part, the Commissioner for Budget, Economic Planning and Performance in the state, Mr Niyi Adebayo while speaking on the importance of the exercise, said with the accurate count of people in a community, it will be easier to make adequate provisions for such people.
He said, “These children, very soon, especially those who are four, five year old, in a year or two from this time would be expected to go to school. Government has to make adequate preparations in respect of the schools they are going to attend, number of teachers needed, learning materials needed and a whole lot of programmes, detailed activities and related items will have to be procured. Because of this, we need to have an accurate count of how many children we have in the state.”
In her address, the state Acting Statistician General, Mrs Dolapo Ojo said the digital birth registration serves statistical purpose for planning and help to promote quality of life for children.
