NPC Registers 36,000 Births In Kano In 9 Months

The National Population Commission (NPC) has said it registered over 36,000 births in Kano State within nine months of deploying its electronic birth registration system.

The Kano State director of NPC, Balarabe Kabir, disclosed this during a two-day State Refresher Training of Trainers held in Kano.

The training was organised by the NPC in collaboration with the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON) and the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), with support from the Government of the Netherlands through the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

Kabir said the figure reflects only part of the total number of children captured so far, adding that about 27,000 children under five years and over 40,000 above five years, who were previously unregistered, had also been documented.

He explained that the training brought together ALGON focal persons and District Civil Registrars from the 44 local government areas of the state to strengthen their capacity on the use of the Vital Registration application for electronic civil registration.

According to him, the exercise was part of efforts to transition from manual to digital birth registration to improve efficiency, accuracy and accessibility of data.

He said, “The training is aimed at reviewing activities carried out in the last nine months, addressing challenges encountered and equipping participants with the skills to step down the training at the ward level.”

Kabir added that the commission would conduct step-down training across the 44 local government areas to reach ward registrars in the 484 wards of the state.

He, however, identified challenges affecting implementation to include system downtime, login issues, delays in National Identification Number (NIN) validation and inadequate support for field registrars, especially in hard-to-reach areas.

The NPC director said the commission had engaged the Kano State Government for support to address the challenges and scale up the exercise.

He stressed that birth registration is a fundamental right of every child and critical for planning, security and access to social services.

Kabir called on stakeholders, including traditional institutions and corporate organisations, to support the commission’s efforts to ensure that every child is registered.