Ondo state governor, Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, has said that birth certificate will now be a prerequisite for the enrolment of any child into primary schools and hospital admission across the state.
Speaking on Tuesday at a stakeholders’ meeting on birth registration in Akure, Ondo state, the governor said the National Population Commission’s (NPC) birth certificate yardstick will also apply to children under the age of five seeking free treatment in government-owned hospitals.
According to him, the measure became necessary in other to plan for the unregistered children.
He noted that parents will have to register their children for accelerated development in the state.
“If we do not have child birth registration, we cannot plan properly. Every child must have genuine birth certificate now before entering primary schools in Ondo state,” he said.
Akeredolu who described the programme as a great initiative however appealed to communities and religious leaders as well as NPC to improve on advocacy and awareness of birth registration in their domains.
Speaking earlier, the governor’s wife, Mrs. Betty Akeredolu, said she’s worried that almost half of children under five years in the state were not considered in socio-economic planning and are therefore at risk of lacking access to basic social amenities that could ensure adequate child development.
She also said that Ondo State has one of the worst birth registration coverage in the South-West as only 68% of our children were registered.
“No more will our children be without an identity; no more will our children lack access to social infrastructure. They are our children and they must be planned for,” she said.
“To improve birth registration, I believe the participation of women in the birth registration framework is quintessential. The reason is simple, women are the first care-givers and they determine to a large extent what their children get,” she added.
