LAGOS STATE GOVERNMENT REFUNDS 145 FORMER SUBSCRIBERS OF EGAN HOUSING ESTATE
admin *Population commission trains ad hoc staff
By Oyebola Owolabi
The Electronic Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (ECRVS) will begin on September 2 in Lagos State.
To this end, the National Population Commission (NPC) has begun training ad hoc registrars across all local government areas.
Federal Commissioner representing Lagos State, Mrs. Saidat Oladunjoye, while opening the training at Kosofe Local Government Area, said the training will be on two phases, while some councils were merged depending on the size and number of volunteers.
She said: “This exercise is to train our ad hoc staffs who will handle the Registration of births to ensure we have accurate data of all children born in Lagos State. They are to register children under 1 and 5 years old. The registration for children under 1 will be done at hospitals and other non- governmental institutions where children are born, while the under 5 years will be done at community and ward levels.
“This particular registration is unique because such children will automatically have their National Identity Number (NIN). It is also important for us to capture as many children as possible to make planning easier.
“Through this registration, the government can make proper plans in education, health, political development among other areas. It will also be easy for us to retrive data on these children rather than carrying paper everywhere while some can be lost in transit.”
Mrs. Oladunjoye thanked UNICEF for providing the funds and Kosofe Council and Conference 57 for making their premises accessible for the training.
UNICEF representative Dennis Onoise urged the councils to help monitor the training to give the exercise greater success.
According to him, the training had held in six states of Edo, Ekiti, Osun, Oyo, Ogun, Ondo, with Lagos being the seventh.
He added that Lagos has the highest expected target of children to be registered, with about 600,000 under 5 and 200,000 under 1 year old.
Onoise said the volunteers are also expected to liaise more with hospitals to ensure children are registered as soon as they are born, especially for under 1.
He added: “UNICEF is supporting this initiative because we understand the importance of birth registration for children, especially in a country where census has not held for a long time. So it is only through birth registration, of the nature and kind we are doing, that you can get some forms of statistics and data about children and what those statistics are needed for.
“Though we are not yet as developed for government to get these figures from the NPC, we are thinking that we are close, and as we move on towards there, we should do proper birth registration for our children and others who need it.
“We are particularly happy that this exercise is digitised, and so we seek the support of all stakeholders to make this a success because it will be beneficial to us all.”
The commission trained 119 volunteers on Somolu council and 197 in Kosofe.
