The National Population Commission (NPC) has disclosed that only about 40 per cent of births in Nigeria are currently registered, despite more than five million children being born in the country annually.
The NPC Chairman, Dr Aminu Yusuf, disclosed this in Abuja during the commemoration of the 2026 Africa Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) Day.
Yusuf described the low rate of birth and death registration as a major challenge to Nigeria’s efforts to establish a reliable national population database.
He said the situation had made it difficult to obtain accurate demographic information required for effective planning, governance and sustainable development.
“More than five million children are born in Nigeria every year. According to the most recent Nigerian Demographic and Health Survey, only about 40 per cent of births are registered, while death registration coverage remains unacceptably low,” he said.
The NPC chairman said the Commission was taking measures to improve registration coverage, including the nationwide deployment of a digital Civil Registration and Vital Statistics system through the Vital Rights Platform on July 1, 2026.
According to him, the digital system represents a shift from manual registration to technology-driven processes for capturing and managing births, deaths, marriages and other vital events.
He said the platform would improve the security and accessibility of vital records, reduce duplication through automated verification and unique identifiers, and promote data sharing among relevant government institutions.
Yusuf said the Commission was also decentralising registration services to make them more accessible, particularly to Nigerians in rural and underserved communities.
He disclosed that digital registration services had been deployed to about 4,000 of the country’s 8,809 wards, with plans to achieve nationwide coverage.
He added that more than 4,000 functional registration centres were currently operating across the 774 local government areas, while the Commission was working to expand the number to about 8,000.
Yusuf said the expansion would reduce the distance, cost and time involved in registering vital events and ensure that geographical barriers did not prevent parents from registering their children.
He also highlighted the Commission’s collaboration with the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria, National Identity Management Commission, UNICEF and BAMFOR Technologies Limited under a partnership compact signed in January 2025.
The NPC chairman said the Commission was further working with the National Primary Health Care Development Agency, state governments and health institutions to integrate birth registration into routine healthcare services.
He said registering children through health facilities would bring the service closer to families and help accelerate birth registration nationwide.
Yusuf called for stronger public awareness, institutional partnerships and community participation to improve civil registration coverage and strengthen Nigeria’s population data system.
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