The National Population Commission (NPC) has warned that Nigeria’s civil registration gap could widen further without faster adoption of digital registration services, as more than five million children are born in the country annually.

The Commission says only about 40% of births are currently registered, leaving a significant proportion of children outside the country’s formal civil registration system despite the nationwide transition to digital registration.

Dr Aminu Yusuf, Chairman of the NPC, raised the concern on Monday in Abuja at a media briefing to commemorate the 2026 Africa Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) Day.

Yusuf says the scale of annual births makes it urgent for Nigeria to accelerate registration coverage, strengthen public awareness and expand access to digital registration services, particularly in underserved communities.

“More than five million children are born in Nigeria every year. According to the most recent Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey (NDHS), only about 40 % of births are registered, while death registration coverage remains unacceptably low,” he says.

The NPC chairman says every birth, death and other vital event must be captured electronically if Nigeria is to build a complete and reliable national database capable of supporting effective governance and planning.

The warning comes barely six weeks after the Commission launched the nationwide fully digital Civil Registration and Vital Statistics system on the VitalReg platform on July 1, marking the end of manual registration.

The transition is part of Nigeria’s response to the new African CRVS decade, covering 2026 to 2036, which focuses on integrating, decentralising and digitalising civil registration systems across the continent.

According to Yusuf, the digital transition represents more than a technological upgrade, as it changes how civil registration services are delivered and how vital statistics are generated and used.

He says the digital platform has improved data storage by maintaining vital records in centralised electronic repositories, reducing the risks of loss, damage and unauthorised alteration associated with manual records.

The system also enables greater interoperability with other national systems, including health institutions, identity management agencies, planning bodies and statistical institutions.

Yusuf says the digital platform is expected to make registration more accessible by reducing the barriers of distance, bureaucracy and delays, particularly for people living in rural and underserved communities.

The system also uses automated verification and unique identifiers to reduce duplication and strengthen the integrity of Nigeria’s civil registration database.

Another benefit, according to the Commission, is the ability to generate vital statistics more quickly, providing government with timely information on births, deaths, marriages and other vital events for evidence-based planning and service delivery.

However, the NPC says the availability of the technology alone will not guarantee universal registration.

To address the coverage gap, the Commission has adopted a partnership-driven approach involving government institutions, development partners, local governments, health facilities and technology stakeholders.

In January 2025, the NPC entered into a Partnership Compact Agreement with the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON), the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), UNICEF and Bankforte Technologies Limited to decentralise civil registration services, improve interoperability and expand access to digital registration at the grassroots.

The Commission is also working with the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), state governments and health institutions to integrate birth registration into routine health services.

The approach is designed to enable children to be registered as close as possible to the point of birth, potentially reducing the number of births that go unregistered because families face difficulties accessing registration centres.

The NPC says the decentralisation programme has already extended digital civil registration services to about 4,000 of Nigeria’s 8,809 wards.

It is also expanding its physical registration network. The Commission currently has more than 4,000 functional registration centres across the country’s 774 Local Government Areas and plans to increase the number to approximately 8,000.

Yusuf says the expansion will bring registration services closer to communities, reduce the time and cost involved in accessing registration and help prevent children and other vital events from being excluded because of geographical barriers.

Beyond documentation, the Commission says comprehensive civil registration is critical to legal identity, access to public services, protection of rights and national development.

Reliable civil registration data can also support government decisions on infrastructure, social protection, healthcare, education and equitable resource allocation.

As Nigeria begins the 2026–2036 CRVS decade, Yusuf says the country will focus on consolidating the gains made under the Africa Programme on Accelerated Improvement of Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (APAI-CRVS).

He called on state and local governments, traditional and religious institutions, health facilities, development partners, civil society organisations and the private sector to support efforts to close the registration gap.

The NPC chairman also urged the media to intensify public enlightenment on the importance of birth and death registration and to promote awareness of the availability of digital registration services.

He says the success of the reform ultimately depends on ensuring that citizens use the system and that every vital event is captured.

“Every birth, every death and every other vital event must be captured in the electronic Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (e-CRVS) system if Nigeria is to build a complete, reliable and actionable national database,” Yusuf says.

For Nigeria, the challenge is therefore shifting from simply building a digital civil registration infrastructure to ensuring that millions of citizens who remain outside the formal registration system are brought into it.

With more than five million births occurring annually, sustained digital adoption, grassroots access and public participation will determine whether the country’s new digital CRVS system can translate its technological promise into comprehensive population data.