The National Population Commission says birth registration coverage in Nigeria currently stands at 57 per cent, while death registration remains below 20 per cent.
NPC Chairman, Dr Aminu Yusuf, disclosed the figures on Wednesday during a news conference in Abuja.
The briefing marked the nationwide commencement of digital birth and death registration on the VitalReg platform under the Electronic Civil Registration and Vital Statistics system.
Yusuf said Nigeria records about five million births every year, but many births and deaths are still not officially captured.
He said the gaps leave millions of citizens without proper legal identity and reduce the quality of demographic data available for national planning.
According to him, the lack of complete civil registration records affects government planning, service delivery and policy implementation.
The NPC chairman described the rollout of the VitalReg platform as one of the most important reforms in Nigeria’s civil registration system.
He said the platform became operational across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory on July 1.
Yusuf explained that the system would modernise the registration of births and deaths across the country.
He said VitalReg would provide faster services, 24-hour online access, digital certificate issuance, reduced paperwork and stronger data validation.
The platform is also expected to improve the security and credibility of Nigeria’s Civil Registration and Vital Statistics database.
Yusuf said the system would serve as a foundational database to support other national data platforms.
He added that VitalReg would enable interoperability with institutions within Nigeria’s digital identity ecosystem.
According to him, this will strengthen service delivery and support the Federal Government’s digital transformation agenda.
The NPC chairman said the commission currently has 4,011 functional registration centres across the 774 local government areas.
He added that the commission was working to expand the network to about 8,000 registration centres nationwide.
Yusuf said the NPC was also improving collaboration with key stakeholders to build the capacity of registration personnel.
He said the goal was to ensure that all vital events are recorded promptly and accurately through the VitalReg platform.
The chairman announced a partnership involving the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria, the National Identity Management Commission, UNICEF and Barnfort Technologies Limited.
He said the partnership would help decentralise birth registration and make services more accessible at the community level.
Yusuf also announced a review of fees for some specialised administrative services.
These include record modification, certificate re-issuance, attestation and verification requests.
He, however, assured Nigerians that birth registration and birth notification services would remain highly subsidised.
According to him, the review is not intended to create barriers to registration.
He said the commission remained committed to achieving universal birth and death registration across Nigeria.
Yusuf added that the VitalReg platform is being operated through a Public-Private Partnership with Barnksforte Technologies Limited.
He described the company as a Nigerian IT solutions provider serving as the commission’s technical partner.
The partnership, he said, would support continuous system availability, cybersecurity protection and regular technology upgrades.
Yusuf called on stakeholders and citizens to support the reform by ensuring that births and deaths are registered without delay.
He said the success of the digital registration system would depend on the active participation of government institutions, communities and every Nigerian.
