Only 40% of births registered in Nigeria — NPC

Nigeria’s National Population Commission (NPC) has said that only around 40 percent of births in the country are officially registered, according to Vanguard News.

The figure underscores the long-standing challenge Nigeria faces in capturing vital statistics for its population, widely regarded as the largest in Africa. The NPC, established in 1988, is the federal agency tasked with conducting censuses and maintaining the national register of births and deaths across the country’s 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory.

Birth registration in Nigeria has historically lagged behind that of many other African countries, particularly in rural communities and in parts of the north, where cultural, logistical and administrative barriers have limited coverage. International organisations, including the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), have worked with federal and state authorities over the years to expand registration, including through health facility-based systems that record newborns at the point of delivery.

Children whose births are not registered often face difficulties later in life in obtaining identity documents, enrolling in school, accessing healthcare services and asserting rights to inheritance and citizenship. The gap also hampers government planning, since reliable birth and death data are essential for budgeting on education, health and social protection.

Nigeria is a signatory to international frameworks that call for universal civil registration of births, and development partners have set targets for the country to improve coverage as part of broader Sustainable Development Goal commitments on legal identity for all by 2030. Closing the gap, however, has required sustained cooperation between federal authorities, state governments and local councils responsible for registration at the grassroots level.

Sources

This report was written from coverage published by the following news organisations. Follow the links for the original reporting.

• Vanguard News — Only 40% of births registered in Nigeria — NPC