The United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund has revealed the gap deficit in the registration of children in Nigeria, noting that more than 50 per cent of the births of children under the age of five remain unregistered.

UNICEF made the statement on Tuesday to address structural, normative and operational challenges to birth registration as Nigeria joins the rest of the World in commemorating Civil Registration and Vital Statistics Day on August 10.

According to a statement on the UNICEF’s website, WuzupNigeria gathered that Nigeria accounts for 11 per cent of the entire unregistered children in West Africa, while only 43 per cent of child births are registered in the country.

UNICEF added that only 44 per cent of children are registered at birth and unfortunately, millions of deaths also go uncounted each year in Africa.

Meanwhile, on a global scale, the organisation responsible for providing humanitarian and developmental aid to children worldwide revealed that the births of 166 million children under 5 have never been recorded.

UNICEF Nigeria Country Representative, Peter Hawkins, in the statement, said birth registration was a one-off event that gives every child a unique identity which would give them better access to vital services like health, education, and social protection.

He said, “Every child counts and we must ensure that we count every child so that they can best benefit from important services like health and education.

“We need to work together to ensure effective coordination to make this happen. Functional systems that allow for the sharing of data across information management databases that are integrated with other vital services are necessary to push the birth registration rate in Nigeria up, and make sure every child is counted.”

Hawkins added that “every child has a right to a name, a nationality and a legal identity.

“Working together, we can and must bring Nigeria to meeting its SDG obligation to provide a legal identify for all, including through birth registration.”