Jigawa state along with stakeholders are working towards a digitalised birth registration. BAYO MUHAMMAD ALABIRA reports.
Jigawa is said to be the poorest state with the lowest child birth registration in Nigeria. This was announced recently at a two-day media capacity building workshop organised by the United Nations Children Education Fund (UNICEF) in Kano.
The workshop which was organised in collaboration with the Abubakar Rimi TV brought together Journalists from Kano, Katsina and Jigawa states to brainstorm for two days.
Also corroborating this figure, the National Population Commission (NPC) Jigawa state office, said that 91% of children and newborn babies in the state do not have birth certificates due to the ignorance of parents and child-care givers on the importance of birth registration.
It has also being revealed that the state is among the states with low compliance, less than nine percent child birth registration. This is said to be directly connected to ignorance and lack of support from government and local authorities.
However, it has also being stressed out that UNICEF and the federal government would collaborate on digitalising child birth registration in the country with a view to making it a policy to be followed religiously by all the stakeholders.
Experts views
Anchoring the lectures during the workshop, Mrs Emelia Allan, a child protection manager with UNICEF Kano field office, Samuel kaalu, the communication specialist UNICEF and Onche Odeh, the media guru grilled journalists across all segments of communication.
The child protectionist, Emelia Allan said child birth registration is necessary for every government in the world, because it helps policy makers to know how to plan, initiate and execute useful developmental programmes.
She said that birth registration is important in any country, because the data is used for planning, without which policy makers would finding it very deficult to initiate and implement effective policies that have direct and equal bearings to the interest of the people being governed.
She further emphasized that already the arrangement and plan of the exercise had gone far with Kano as the pilot state because the success in Kano would determine how the exercise can go about successfully throughout the country.
She stressed that increasing birth registration in Nigeria is among the key areas UNICEF is taking seriously with Kano as a piloting state on digital birth registration.
The child right protection expert explained that UNICEF is supporting the Kano state government to digitise birth registration because manual registration is part of the processes making birth registration cumbersome and low.
Allan said hopefully, Kano state government would starting the programme in October 2022, piloting the exercise in all the 44 local government areas of the state with a view to jettison the manual system.
Digital registration of the children birth, she said would go directly into the system and a digital certificate will be printed and given out immediately unlike the manual system.
UNICEF, the expert noted has already taken the bull by the horn, leading the programme against children safety.
“We are doing our best on child right protection with government agreeing on five key areas, including law and policies in line with international standard.”
Also the UNICEF chief, Kano Field Office, Mr Rahama Farah, represented by Mr Samuel Kaalu tasked journalists to focus more on issues affecting vulnerable children and women in their reportage.
“2023 is approaching; politicians and candidates are campaigning to hold various positions in the country; the media should get them to make commitments on how they intend to tackle some of these issues if they are elected into various offices,” Farah noted.
In northern Nigeria, traditional rulers also push for birth registration with support from the European Union.
“UNICEF has been working with state governments and traditional leaders to encourage and support birth registration,” Samuel Kaalu added.
From parents perspectives
A journalist, Sadiq Ilyas who wanted his child registered at the time of birth said, “My wife gave birth to a baby boy recently in a private hospital in Dutse Jigawa state, but there was nobody to register the child in that hospital. So after a week, I took my child to National Population Commission (NPC) to register him.”
Also, one Buba Manu said, “Recently, my wife gave birth to a baby girl in a government hospital. I immediately ordered for the new born child be registered, because I know how importance it is to the society, the state and the country in general.”
