For millions of Nigerian children, the journey to education begins with a document many take for granted—the birth certificate. Beyond proving a child’s identity, birth registration can facilitate access to education, healthcare, and social protection, while helping the government plan and fund essential services. As Nigeria increasingly moves towards electronic birth registration, parents, health workers and civil registration officials face both the opportunities and challenges of ensuring every child is counted and ultimately able to make the journey from birth certificate to classroom. Funmi Ogundare reports For many children, the education journey begins long before they walk through the gates of a school. It begins with something as basic as having a name, a date and place of birth officially recorded. Yet, for millions of children, that first step remains incomplete. A birth certificate may seem like a document kept safely at home, but it is much more than that. It is a child’s legal proof of identity and a gateway to essential services, including education. For Mrs Deborah Eyoh, a mother of three, registering a child’s birth is more than obtaining a document. It is an important step towards securing the child’s identity and making future access to essential services easier. When THISDAY encountered her recently at a Primary Health Centre (PHC) in the Sangotedo area of Lagos, Eyoh said she embraced electronic birth registration after learning about the process and immediately registered her children, convinced that the digital system would make verification easier whenever the documents are needed. “Just in case your child wants to be admitted to school tomorrow, it’s very important,” she said, stressing that a properly registered birth gives authorities reliable information that can be verified when required. For her, the importance of birth registration becomes particularly clear when children begin navigating systems such as education, where accurate personal information can determine how easily their records are verified. She said electronic registration could also help curb age falsification, a practice that can create difficulties for institutions trying to establish applicants’ true age and identity. “By the time you do this and the person gives some information, you verify, and then you know that the person is lying,” she explained. But her advocacy does not stop with her own children. After discovering that some mothers in her neighbourhood were unaware that electronic birth registration services are available at health centres, she took it upon herself to share the information with them. She recalled advising several new mothers to ask for electronic birth certificates when they visit health centres for their babies’ immunisation. “I’ve even mentioned it to three mothers who gave birth in my area that they don’t even know,” she said. Eyoh stated that the health centre offers an opportunity to combine two important interventions: birth registration and access to routine childhood services. She encouraged mothers who take their babies to health centres for immunisation to also inquire about birth registration, because the service is available free of charge, especially for children between the ages of zero to five years, in the public system. Whenever a neighbour or relative gives birth, she said she makes a point of directing them to health centres where they can obtain the service. Another mother, Mrs Juliet Duke, said she did not want to postpone registering her baby’s birth. With her baby just 10 weeks old, Duke visited the Sangotedo PHC registration centre to obtain the child’s birth certificate, convinced that securing the document early would save her from future difficulties. “I came when my baby was six weeks old. I came to do it, and now my baby is 10 weeks. They said it was ready,” she said. Unlike the complicated processes many parents may fear, Duke said her experience at the registration centre was straightforward and involved little waiting. “There was not much process. It was easy,” she recalled. She acknowledged that not every parent may yet understand the importance of registering a child’s birth. Duke said she believed that routine visits to health facilities could provide an opportunity to spread the message. “I believe that once they go for immunisation, they can get it,” she stated According to UNICEF, about 3.5 million children under the age of one across Lagos, Ogun, Oyo, Osun, Ondo, Ekiti and Edo States were currently not registered at birth, leaving them effectively invisible within the civil registration system. The failure to register millions of children at birth could undermine gove
Don't miss out on breaking stories and in-depth articles.
