NPC laments low registration

The National Population
Commission on Monday lamented
that only 57 per cent of under-
five Nigerians were registered
during the 2013
Demographic and Health Survey done by the
NPC.
The remaining 43 per cent of
Nigerian children under the age
of five, he said, were not
registered and as such were, in
legal terms, not existing in the
country.
The commission said this and
Nigerians' apathy towards
registration of death had
combined to make statistics
needed for national planning and
development impossible to
collate.
The Chairman of the NPC, Mr. Eze
Duruiheoma, said this while
delivering a keynote address at
the Orientation Workshop on
Birth Registration Messaging in
Kaduna, an NPC programme
sponsored by the United Nations
International Children Education
Fund, in Maiduguri on Monday.
He said, "In Nigeria, according to
the 2013 Demographic and
Health Survey, birth registration
of under-5 children is 57 per
cent, while the remaining 43 per
cent remain unregistered and in
legal terms do not exist."
The NPC chairman, who was
represented by the commission's
Director of Public Affairs, Mr.
Simon Otene, said the reason for
this was the ignorance of
mothers and caregivers on the
importance of registering the
births of their new born babies
and obtaining certificates as
evidence.
"The problem is compounded by
the fact that three in every five
births (62 per cent of all births)
occur at home and only 35 per
cent of births in Nigeria are
delivered in health facilities.
"The Demographic and Housing
Survey data indicated that
women in urban areas are more
than twice as likely to deliver in a
health facility as their rural
counterparts (60 per cent to 25
per cent," Duruiheoma said.
He revealed that that the South-
East had the highest proportion
of institutional deliveries of 74
per cent, followed by the South-
West with 70 per cent, while the
North-West had the lowest with
eight per cent.
Duruiheoma insisted that women
with higher levels of educational
attainment were more likely to
deliver in a health facility than
women with lower or no
education.
The NPC boss also lamented that
reliable statistics and information
on death registration was also
difficult to come by in the nation
and had affected development of
the nation.
He said, "Birth and death
registration coverage of hard-to-
reach areas in the northern part
of the country remains
persistently low. This is mainly
due to lack of adequate public
awareness on the importance of
birth registration and ingrained
socio-cultural beliefs that impact
negatively on registering births
and deaths."
The representative of UNICEF at
the workshop, Mr. Geoffrey
Njoku, said the international
agency was working with the
media to educate Nigerians on
birth registration.