The National Orientation Agency (NOA), has urged parents and guardians to embrace effective birth registration in order to generate accurate data for national planning and development.
Mr Mkpoutom Mkpoutom, the NOA Director in Akwa Ibom, made the call at a birth registration sensitisation and mobilisation programme in Uyo.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the programme was organised in partnership with the National Population Commission (NPC) and UNICEF.
Mkpoutom said that accurate birth registration was critical to generating essential data to plan for education, healthcare, and other public services
He said that it was important for every child in the country to be captured in government’s plan for education, healthcare, and other essential services.
The NOA official said that the mobilisation drive was aimed at registering children of between zero and five years of age.
He urged parents and guardians to take advantage of the programme to register and obtain national identification numbers for their children and wards.
“Birth registration is the first legal acknowledgement of a child’s existence, it is essential to safeguard the child’s rights and privileges.
“Birth registration is a fundamental right of every child. This initiative seeks to highlight its importance to the child, the family, the community and the nation at large,” he said
In his remarks, Mr Emmanuel Edem, the NPC Director in Akwa Ibom, said that some children’s births were not documented because their parents could not afford it
Edem said that children whose births had not been properly documented were not officially known to the government.
“Such undocumented children may miss out from essential programmes such as, child protection, healthcare and education.
“Every child has the right to a legal identity, but a large number of children born today do not,” he said.(NAN)
