First Lady urges parents to register children’s birth with NPC

The First Lady of Nigeria, Sen. Oluremi Tinubu has urged parents to register the birth of their children with the National Population Commission (NPC).

According to her, this will enable them to access their rightful benefits from the government.

Tinubu said this on Thursday in Abuja at the official inauguration of her Renewed Hope Initiative (RHI) and UNICEF commemorative birth certificate to accelerate birth registration in the country.

She said the programme was aimed at providing a strategic action plan, mobilise leadership and political commitment with a view to accelerating birth registration as part of civil registration and vital statistics systems in the country.

“I hope that this action embarked upon today will get us on track to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal 16. 9. 2 – “A legal identity for all, including birth registration.

“It is important to note that a robust and efficient civil registration system is pivotal to our development and governance.

“This ensures that every live birth is recorded, and forms the basis for policy, planning, and service delivery that meets the needs of all Nigerians. This is more than an administrative task, it provides the foundation for our social security.

“To all parents, birth registration is very vital. It is the child’s legal proof of identity, as a Nigerian, without which children will not be fully recognised by the government, they could miss out on government’s provision of healthcare, education and other social amenities.”

According to her, without a birth certificate, children will be unable to prove their age and this puts them at a great disadvantage.

“I, therefore, encourage all parents to register the birth of their children and obtain authentic birth certificates recognised by the government,” she said.

The first lady further said that the number of most children from age zero to five was not captured in birth registration with the NPC.

“Based on the recent data from the Nigeria Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS) report (2021), about 24,977 live births occur daily in Nigeria, while 0.3 per cent of these have their births registered; only 36 per cent of these children receive birth certificates.

“I salute the commitments made by President Bola Tinubu when he inaugurated the Electronic Civil Registration and Vital Statistics System (e-CRVS), alongside the National Geo-spatial Data Repository; and the inauguration of the NPC on Civil Registration and Vital Statistics in November 2023.

“However, there is an urgent need for a strategic shift in the registration of the significant life events such as birth registration for every Nigerian child to have a name and nationality recognised under the law.’’