JUST IN: Birth registration critical to national planning, development – NPC

The National Population Commission, NPC, has stated that birth registration is a critical factor in national planning and development and should be embraced by all parents in the country.

The Commission appealed to parents to take advantage of the simplified digital registration process to get their children and wards captured in the exercise.

The NPC Controller, Makurdi Local Government Area, LGA, Mr. Henry Uzungwu who spoke shortly after monitoring the digital registration of children at the FMC Registration Centre in Makurdi decried the low birth registration in the country.

While noting the importance of having the births of children registered, the Controller explained that “it is a permanent and official record of a child’s existence which provides legal recognition of that child’s identity and therefore it is a right that must not be denied any child.

“So every parent owes the child a responsibility of taking him or her to registration points and have their births registered because we know that at seven days a child is entitled to a name and because the child is entitled to a name that child should also have his birth register and a certificate issued to the child.

“The fact is that birth registration has come to stay and going forward it could be that once a child is registered he or she will have a code. And that code will be used throughout the life time of that child.

“That code could be used for school registration, voter registration, opening of a bank account and several other things. So it is high time our parents realised the implication of shunning the registration exercise and bring their children forward for registration without delay.

“We must also realise that birth registration is critical in helping the country generate all the data it needs for planning and national development. So it is a must for everyone.”

While listing some of the challenges being faced to scale up registration, the Controller noted that “the intervention of UNICEF has helped in scaling up our registration because any month we have UNICEF intervention we record high numbers of registrants. Sometimes we record over 200 percent of the number we registered in the previous month.

“But the NPC has to also stand up to its own responsibilities because the NPC is looked upon as a population data bank for the country.

“The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, is looking up to the NPC; the security agencies among so many other agencies are all looking up to the NPC for data. So the NPC must live up to its own responsibilities irrespective of the intervention that comes from UNICEF.”