By Zaharaddeen Ishaq Abubakar

The National Population Commission (NPC) has announced that Nigeria has transitioned to a fully digital Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) system, with the nationwide deployment of the VitalReg platform.

Chairman of the Commission, Dr Aminu Yusuf, disclosed this on Monday at a media briefing to commemorate the 2026 Africa Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) Day.

Yusuf said the digital system was officially launched nationwide on July 1, 2026, marking the end of manual civil registration and the beginning of a technology-driven system for recording births, deaths and other vital events.

He said the development aligned with the theme of the 2026 Africa CRVS Day: “New CRVS Decade (2026–2036): Consolidating the Gains of APAI-CRVS and Securing the Future of Civil Registration and Vital Statistics in Africa through Integration, Decentralization and Digitalization.”

According to him, the transition would improve the security, efficiency, accessibility and reliability of civil registration services while providing accurate demographic data for national planning and development.

Yusuf said the digital platform would ensure that vital records were securely stored electronically, reducing the risk of loss, damage and unauthorised alteration associated with manual records.

He added that the system would also improve interoperability between civil registration and other national institutions, including health facilities, identity management agencies, statistical institutions and planning bodies.

The NPC chairman said digital registration would make it easier for Nigerians, particularly those in rural and underserved communities, to register vital events and obtain certificates with fewer delays and administrative barriers.

He also said automated verification and unique identifiers would help reduce duplication and strengthen the integrity of the national civil registration database.

“Digitalisation enables the timely production and dissemination of vital statistics. Reliable data on births, deaths, marriages and other vital events can now be generated more quickly to support evidence-based planning, efficient service delivery and informed decision-making,” he said.

Despite the progress, Yusuf said Nigeria still faced a significant registration gap, noting that more than five million children were born in the country annually.

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He said the latest Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey showed that only about 40 per cent of births were registered, while death registration remained considerably low.

He therefore called for increased public awareness, stronger partnerships and greater community participation to ensure that every vital event was captured in the electronic CRVS system.

Yusuf said the NPC had adopted a partnership-driven approach to address the challenges, citing a Partnership Compact Agreement signed in January 2025 with the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON), National Identity Management Commission (NIMC), UNICEF and Bankforte Technologies Limited (BTL).

He said the partnership was aimed at decentralising civil registration services, improving interoperability and expanding digital registration at the grassroots.

The commission, he added, was also working with the National Primary Health Care Development Agency (NPHCDA), state governments, health institutions and other partners to integrate birth registration into routine health services.

According to him, digital civil registration services have so far been extended to about 4,000 of the 8,809 wards across the country, with plans to achieve nationwide coverage.

He said the NPC currently had more than 4,000 functional registration centres across the 774 local government areas and was working to increase the number to about 8,000 centres nationwide.

Yusuf said the expansion, combined with the deployment of the VitalReg platform, would bring registration services closer to communities and reduce the cost and time required to access them.

He said Nigeria remained committed to consolidating the gains of the Africa Programme on Accelerated Improvement of Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (APAI-CRVS) during the new CRVS decade.

The chairman urged the media to support the reform by raising public awareness about the importance of birth and death registration and the availability of digital registration services.

He also appealed to state and local governments, traditional and religious institutions, health facilities, development partners, civil society organisations and the private sector to support the commission's efforts.

“Civil registration is not merely a legal obligation but the foundation of legal identity, access to services, protection of rights and national development,” Yusuf said.

He said the commission remained committed to building a civil registration system that was fully digital, integrated, decentralised, secure, transparent and accessible to all Nigerians.