The National Population Commission (NPC) says that 210,599 children have been captured during an online registration within four months in Kwara.
Mr Emmanuel Adepoju, state Director of NPC, disclosed this on Wednesday in Ilorin while speaking with the newsmen.
Adepoju said that the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) sponsored the online registration programme for children within the age of five years and below.
He said that the programme started on Aug.14 and ended Dec. 14 with a target to register 152,828 children.
“We were able to beat the target given to us to capture 152,828, as we were able to capture 210,599, which is 130 per cent of our expectation.
“This was made possible with the assistant of 679 volunteers and 96 registrars assigned to various wards all over the 16 Local Government Areas of the state.
“The sponsor of the programme, UNICEF provided the financial expenses for the whole exercise and we included our personal money in order to achieve the set target, which eventually resulted to our success,” he said.
The director said that the commission at its head office in Abuja, constituted a technical working group, a committee comprising of people from the Ministry of Social Welfare and the Ministry of Health.
“Also, representatives from World Health Organisation (WHO), National Orientation Agency (NOA), Bureau of Statistics and others, headed by the first lady, Mrs Oluremi Tinubu, were included in order to capture children at birth,” he said.
Adepoju said that the same thing would be done in all the states of the federation, where a committee would be set up and headed by the state governor’s wives.
“The committee is to be inaugurated, after which they will device a means by which all new born babies in each state are registered,” he said.