At least 42.73 per cent of Nigerian children cannot be legally identified. This means these children can be denied access to certain basic amenities at any point as they have no birth certificate.
Birth registration data from UNICEF reveals that 57.27 per cent of children under five in Nigeria have been registered. That for children under one was 50.25 per cent by the end of 2021.
This means that 42.73 per cent of the children have no birth registration. This places 15.4 million children in Nigeria without birth registration/certificate.
There was an improvement in the birth registration rate recorded in 2021 compared to 2018. Under-5 birth registration increased from 48 per cent in 2018 to 57.27 per cent in 2021. Under-1 birth registration also increased from 38.8 in per cent in 2018 to 50.25 per cent in 2021.
Thus, the registration coverage in 2021 represents a 19.31 percent improvement in the under-five category over that of 2018 and a 29.52 percent improvement in the under-one category.
Across gender, male children have a slightly high registration than females. The records show that 57.76 per cent of male children and 56.77 per cent of female children were registered.
Despite the improvement recorded in 2021, Nigeria’s birth registration is still below the West and Central Africa regional average. In the region, 59.83 per cent of children under-5 and 53.43 per cent of those under-1 were registered.
However, the country’s performance is above the continent’s average. In the Sub-Saharan Africa region, it was 50.56 per cent for registered children under five and 42.57 per cent for those under one year.
Birth registration in Nigeria is mandatory, as stated in the Birth, Death, etc. (Compulsory Registration) Act. The act stipulates that birth registration will remain free for a certain period to ensure the smooth registration of children. In Section 10(1), the act makes birth registration free for all within the first sixty days of birth:
“It shall be the duty of any person required to give information concerning any birth to give to the registrar before the expiration of a period of sixty days from the date of the birth information of the particulars required to be registered concerning the birth.”
However, after sixty days have elapsed, birth registration can still be done, but at a fee prescribed by the registrar, as stated in Section 10(2)
- sixty days and within twelve months after the birth by the registrar or the Deputy Chief Registrar in whose custody the relevant register of births may be at the time the report for registration is received and subject to the payment of such fees as may be prescribed;
- twelve months therefrom with the authority of the Deputy Chief Registrar and subject to the payment of such fees as may be prescribed.
Despite the free status, 15.4 million children in the country are not registered. This means these children are exposed to violence, abuse, and exploitation as they don’t have legal proof of identity and can’t prove their age.
“Without a birth certificate, children are unable to prove their age, which puts them at a much higher risk of being forced into early marriage or the labour market, or recruited into armed forces,” UNICEF noted.
Besides further social challenges such as being forced into early marriage and being victims of child labour, the children’s protection against child trafficking and illegal adoption is invalid as they don’t have legal status.
Their inability to be registered will deny these children access to routine vaccination and other healthcare and educational services. This will make them not ready to take up employment opportunities in the future as they need to prepare for the labour market.
The slow response to birth registration in Nigeria can be attributed to the operation of two parallel and competing systems for birth registration at the federal and state levels, an insufficient number of birth registrars, a lack of public awareness of the significance of birth registration for children, combined with ingrained social beliefs that discourage child registration.
Consequently, a high number of unregistered children make government planning for social amenities such as the building of more schools and primary health care facilities difficult, due to incomplete and inaccurate data on the number of people needed to be taken care of.