Borno Leads Kano, Lagos, Others in Birth Registration

Borno State is leading other states of the federation in the number of birth registrations conducted nationwide in the last five years, the National Population Commission (NPC) says.

Head of Department, Vital Registration Department, National Population Commission (NPC) in Borno State, Emmanuel Mark said this in an interview with the

yesterday.

He was speaking at the sideline of a Media Dialogue on Birth Registration in Kano, convened by the United Nations Children Education Fund (UNICEF) in support of the Child Right Information Bureau, Federal Ministry information, Culture and Tourism.

The meeting had in attendance over 40 participants to tackle limitations hindering birth registration in the country.

reported that Borno is ahead of others in the chart of birth registration in Nigeria with 83 per cent under-one registration, and 20 per cent under-five registration within the period.

Mark noted that the organisation in realising its dream, through the support of the UNICEF, which engaged its staff with the business of registering children within the local government areas of the state.

According to him, other organisations also give their support to Borno in ensuring that children were registered at birth.

“Apart from UNICEF, there are other organisations like the UNHCR and NonGovernmental Organisations (NGOs) that supported us in the birth registration processes.

“What we also did to earn the glory was to assign our registrars not to only register at designated centres but also register in private hospitals and Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps.

“So we have to take advantage of the IDP camps across the state and register the children,” he said.

Mark explained that traditional rulers and religious organisations were not involved in this registration but added that in the subsequent process they would be involved.