Data Bank: Adamawa to embark on massive birth registration

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By; TINA PHINEAS, Yola.
In its effort to get a comprehensive data of children between the ages of 0 to 18 years, the National Population Commission (NPC) is set to embark on one week massive Birth Registration exercise in Adamawa state.
The Head of Department, Vital Registration of the commission in Yola office, Mr Innocent Mishikir made this known in Yola at a media advocacy meeting on birth registration campaign in Adamawa organized by the commission in collaboration with UNICEF/EU.
According to him, the exercise became necessary due to the
disturbing low record of birth registration in the state which made it the least in the North East geo political zone of Nigeria.
Mishikir explained that from January to date, the commissionregistered only 87, 748 children in the state comprising 45, 858 males and 41,890 females, a development he described as grossly inadequate.
The HOD Vital Registration said that some of the reasons responsible for the poor registration included inadequate registration centers and lack of public awareness on the importance of birth registration.
“For instance, we have only 79 registration centres in the state; weneed at least a centre in each of the 226 wards in the state,” Mishikir said.
The HOD said that 21,136 sub registrars had been recruited by the commission for the coming one week massive birth registration exercise starting on Monday.
He urged for the enforcement of existing Law, ACT 69 of 1992 which stipulated a penalty of fine for parent who failed to register their new born within 60 days.
Also speaking at the meeting, the Information Officer of UNICEF Bauchi Field office, Mr Samuel Kaalu, said that the non registration of a child among others contravened the child’s right to an identity.
Kaalu said that the media advocacy meeting on birth registration was organized to actively involve the media on enlightening the public on the relevance of birth registration due to the agenda setting function of the media.

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