State Governments Announce Adoption Of E-Birth Registration For Children 5 Years And Below 

The Lagos State Government has announced a new initiative that will streamline and modernize the birth registration process.

In collaboration with the National Population Commission (NPC), the Lagos State Government and others revealed in August, that they are set to commence the Electronic Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (ECRVS) program on the 2nd of September, 2024.

The NPC had started training ad hoc registrars in the various local governments of some states as preparation measures for the upcoming rollout. The recruitment for ad hoc registrars took place last year, 2023.

At the opening of one of these training sessions in Kosofe Local government, the Federal Commissioner representing Lagos State, Mrs. Saidat Oladunjoye, spoke about the various phases of training that volunteers will undergo.

She outlined the steps that the state had taken to ensure smooth operations in the training centers such as the merging of councils for the training sessions, based on the size and numbers of volunteers available.

Speaking on the exercise she stated;

“This exercise is designed to train our ad hoc officials who will be responsible for the registration of births, ensuring we obtain accurate data on children born in Lagos State.

“The focus will be on registering children under 1 and 5 years of age. Registrations for children under 1 year will take place at hospitals and other institutions where births occur, while those for children under 5 years will be conducted at the community and ward levels.”

A significant improvement that this new initiative will bring about is the automatic issuance of a National Identity Number (NIN) to every registered child.

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In her speech, Mrs. Oladunjoye pointed out the importance of making sure every single child is registered through this system, as the data obtained from the initiative will help the government better plan and assign important resources to various sectors such as health, education, etc. which will aid the development of children.

In her words;

“Through this registration, the government can make informed decisions and create better plans for the future. It will also simplify data retrieval, eliminating the need for paper-based records, which are prone to being lost in transit.”

Also in August, NPC, said it has begun training for almost 1,500 ad hoc staff in Ogun State ahead of the commencement of digital birth registration, otherwise called e-registration.

The NPC Federal Commissioner in the state, Fasuwa Johnson, stated this in an interview with DAILY POST.

The commissioner, while lauding UNICEF for its e-birth registration initiative, maintained that it will aid in proper planning and policy formation.

He lamented that the country’s policies are based on outdated data, noting that having accurate data would help in effective planning and development. He said:

“We need to make sure that the birth registration drive is built on, especially the e-registration. If we can get this right, which UNICEF is trying to help with, it will be a very good one.

“We have ad hoc participants who are close to 1500 in Ogun State, and they are across the 20 local government areas. Last week, we trained 11 local government areas scattered across three training centres, and we just did a review meeting now; it was perfect.

“The meeting was to review those three and plan for the next three centres. So tomorrow we will be going to Sagamu, Ijebu Ode and Ijebu Mushin training centres.

“And what they would be doing is training them on how to capture the registration of births of kids between 0 and 5. So that anybody below five years old, we would be sure they have their digital birth certificate with them.”

The commissioner maintained that the registration would be done from house to house to ensure that every child is captured and urged parents and guardians to secure the future of their children by registering them.