ABUJA — The Senate on Monday openly rejected population figures churned out by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), declaring them unreliable and unfit for national planning, as it moved to impose compulsory digital registration of all births and deaths in Nigeria.
Chairman of the Senate Committee on National Identity Card and National Population, Senator Victor Umeh, said the continued dependence on estimated population data had crippled governance, distorted resource allocation and excluded millions of Nigerians from government programmes.
Speaking at a public hearing in Abuja on a bill to repeal the Births, Deaths, etc. (Compulsory Registration) Act, 2004, and enact the Compulsory Civil Registration Act, 2025, Umeh said Nigeria could no longer afford to “build policies on guesswork.”
“We cannot continue to work with estimated figures of about 250 million people,” he said.
“If births and deaths are not registered, people are excluded from national planning. Government planning and family allocations will now be driven strictly by verified national registers.”
Umeh said decades of weak civil registration had left Nigeria without credible demographic data, forcing authorities to rely on projections that undermine planning in education, healthcare, security, social welfare, electoral boundary delineation and economic development.
He described the proposed law as a decisive break from outdated, paper-based systems, stressing that Nigeria must align with global standards by adopting a fully electronic and integrated civil registration and vital statistics system.
“The world has gone digital. Nigeria must move from fragmented and inconsistent records to an integrated electronic system if we are serious about development and global competitiveness,” he said.
According to him, the bill mandates the registration of every birth and death and strengthens collaboration among the National Identity Management Commission, National Population Commission, Immigration Service, Federal Road Safety Corps and health institutions to ensure accurate, real-time data capture.
Umeh said the reform would tighten national security through a verified demographic database, protect children’s rights by guaranteeing access to healthcare and education, and ensure fair and evidence-based allocation of public resources.
He also blamed poor death registration for rampant payroll fraud in the public service, noting that deceased persons often remain on government payrolls for years.
“When death is not registered, there is no way to clean up the payroll. That is why people who are long dead still receive salaries in Nigeria,” he said.
The senator added that early birth registration would enable the government to plan ahead for schools, hospitals and other social services, insisting that unregistered children remain invisible to the state.
“When a child is born and not registered, nobody knows that child is a Nigerian,” he said.
Umeh called on hospitals to register births and deaths immediately, security agencies to enforce compliance, and data institutions to ensure interoperability and seamless data-sharing. He also urged religious and community leaders to mobilise citizens, while calling on development partners, including UNICEF, to provide technical support.
In a speech delivered by Senator Onyekachi Nwabonyi, the Senate President backed the bill, describing credible birth and death registration as central to Nigeria’s sovereignty and governance.
“Accurate registration of births and deaths is the DNA of any sovereign state,” the Senate President said, urging lawmakers to pass a law that would end Nigeria’s dependence on uncertain numbers and deliver a credible national population database.
