NPC registers births in 13, 000 Kaduna households

The National Population Commission (NPC), in collaboration with the National Orientation Agency (NOA), has registered 13, 023 residents of 60 communities in six local government areas of Kaduna State, as part of efforts to increase birth registration in the state.

The local governments are Kaduna South, Kaduna North, Jema’a, Igabi, Sabon Gari and Chikun.

This was disclosed at a media briefing to report the conduct of the community re-orientation and grassroots dialogue on an increased birth registration in 60 local communities of the six local government areas and registrations of under-five children in the state.

Giving a breakdown of the communities registered so far, the state director of the NPC, Hajiya Adama Uthman, said 849 had been registered in Jema’a, 200 in Chikun, 2239 in Igabi, 1879 in Kaduna South and 3154 in Kaduna North.

Dr Abdulmalik Mohammed Durunguwa, a federal commissioner in the NPC, however, decried the neglect of birth registration in the state and the country in general. He said the agency would give Nigerians orientation on why it is compulsory for births to be registered.

“If a parent does not register a child after 60 days of birth, that parent should be penalised.

“There have been controversies where some people claim death certificates when they are actually alive, so in order to check our population, we need to register births and deaths to plan for the future,” he said.

He noted that the commission would soon launch an e-registration platform to capture childbirth, saying, “We had to put the launch on hold because President Muhammadu Buhari gave us a marching order to demarcate all states of the federation in order to plan for the future.”