By Millicent Ifeanyichukwu/Olatunde Ajayi
The National Population Commission (NPC) in Lagos has warned parents against patronising touts for birth certification registration of their children.
Mr Ajibola Gafar, Head of Civil Registration and Vital Statistics of the commission, made the call at a two-day media dialogue on E-birth registration, on Wednesday, in Lagos.
Gafar called on parents to maximise the e-birth registration to obtain genuine birth certificates for their children and do away with third party issuing fake certificates .
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports the media dialogue was organised by the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) in collaboration with the Lagos State Ministry of Youth and Social Development and NPC.
The media dialogue had the theme: “A Media dialogue to drive e-birth registration in Southwest”.
According to Gafar, the commission is faced with activities of touts extorting money from parents by issuing fake birth certificate.
“We believe e-birth registration will also eliminate the activities of touts impersonating NPC officials,” he said.
Also, Mr Isiaka Okesanjo, NPC Controller, Eti-Osa Local Government Area of Lagos, said that birth registration and certificate from age zero to 18 was free, while persons above 18 years of age would be given attestation of birth.
According to him, this can be given only at the NPC state offices.
Okesanjo said that while the e-registration was faster, the manual registration was cumbersome and tiring.
`We believe information captured under e-registration goes directly to cloud storage that can be accessed anytime.
“In the event of natural disaster such as flood or fire incident, data stored through e-registration will still remain intact.
“The commission is eager to move from present manual system to e-registration because of its advantages.
“We have two methods of registration, active and passive; under the former method, people come to registrar’s office for registration, while under the latter, registrar goes out to various locations under active method.
“As part of efforts to capture more children,we also work with traditional birth attendants, churches, mosques and primary healthcare centres,” he said.
Okesanjo disclosed that no fewer than 1,363 children had been registered in the local government.
He, however , said that birth registration was higher in rural areas than the in urban areas.
Okesanjo said this was due to the fact that people in the urban areas were well informed on the benefits of family planning.(NAN)
