By Oluwaseyi Oduneye,-Ogunwomoju
The National Population Commission (NPC) has inaugurated a 2-day training for its staff in the local government councils and ALGON focal personnel on ECRVS birth registration system in Oyo State.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the training on Electronic Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (ECRVS) birth registration system is in collaboration with the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON) and United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).
Speaking at the opening of the workshop in Ibadan, Mr Ademola Awolola, the State Director, NPC, said the initiative was a train-the-trainer scheme for various local government councils.
“You have to pay attention to all details that is necessary so that the training session at the local goverment level can be effective. So that the target and results we are aiming for can be achieved,” he said.
Also, Miss Latifah Aspitah-Isah, the National Project Coordinator, Birth Registration, ALGON, said that the partnership showed what could be achieved when government institutions, local government structures, and development partners align around a single, urgent cause.
Aspitah-Isah said that the right of every Nigerian child to be seen, counted, and recognised from the moment they draw their first breath was very important.
“Birth registration is not a bureaucratic formality. It is the first legal acknowledgment of a child’s existence.
“It is the foundation upon which a child’s access to education, healthcare, inheritance, nationality, and protection from exploitation is built.
“A child without a birth certificate is, in the eyes of many systems, a child who does not officially exist and that is an injustice we must correct.
“Nigeria continues to face significant gaps in birth registration coverage, particularly in rural and hard-to-reach communities.
“Too many of our children remain undocumented, invisible to the very systems designed to protect and serve them.
“This is why the work you are about to be trained on is not merely administrative, it is a matter of child rights, national planning, and human dignity,” she said.
Aspitah-Isah reaffirmed ALGON’s commitment to working with the 774 local government areas across this country to ensure that birth registration becomes not an event, but a sustained culture.
ALGON Chairman, Oyo State Chapter, Mr Sikiru Sanda, who also serves as the Chairman of Egbeda Local Government, commended all LGs for sending their representative.
“Be attentive, ask questions when in doubt or in need of clarity. It is when you are fully informed that you can do a proper documentation,” he said.
The ALGON chairman said that the essence was to have a fully digitalised birth procedure in the whole country.
“This will help improve development in planning as a nation. Statistics that we had in the past are not accurate because of absence of proper data base.
“This will enable all the children in the country have a national identity,” Sanda said.
The ALGON chairman also urged residents of the state not to politicise the exercise because the country was in an electioneering period.
“Our people need to know that this process is for the betterment of our children and not about politics,” he said.(NAN)(www.nannews.ng)
Edited by Bayo Sekoni