The National Population Commission has said it registered over 36,000 births in Kano in nine months of deploying its electronic birth registration system.

The Kano director of NPC, Balarabe Kabir, disclosed this during a two-day state refresher training of trainers held in Kano.

Mr Kabir said the training was organised by the NPC in collaboration with the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria and the National Identity Management Commission, with support from the Netherlands through the United Nations Children’s Fund.

The director said the figure reflected only part of the total number of children captured so far.

He said about 27,000 children under five years old and over 40,000 children above five years old who were previously unregistered had also been documented.

He explained that the training brought together ALGON focal persons and district civil registrars from the 44 local government areas of the state to strengthen their capacity to use the vital registration application for electronic civil registration.

Mr Kabir added that the commission would conduct step-down training across the 44 LGAs to reach ward registrars in the 484 wards.

He, however, identified challenges affecting implementation, including system downtime, login issues, delays in validating National Identification Numbers, and inadequate support for field registrars, especially in hard-to-reach areas.

The director said the commission engaged the Kano government to address the challenges and scale up the exercise.

Mr Kabir stressed that birth registration remains a fundamental right for every child and is critical for planning, security and access to social services.

He called on stakeholders, including traditional institutions and corporate organisations, to support the commission’s efforts to ensure every child is registered.

(NAN)