The Force Pathologist Office of the Nigeria Police Force has partnered the National Population Commission to raise the awareness on death notification and registration in Lagos State.
At a symposium held in Lagos, Force Pathologist, CSP Samuel Keshinro, said death registration was part of the civil registration and vital statistics.
He said, “Childbirth is usually a joyful experience and registration of this event is encouraged by various occasions
of life like school enrolment, job application obtaining goverment IDs, scholarships etc. Therefore, it is
expectedly easy to convince the populace to register birth and obtain a birth certificate from the
authorised agency, the National Population Commission.
“Unlike birth, death is mostly a sad occurrence with subsequent religious and cultural events geared
towards the funeral rites only. However, there are obligatory mandates similar to birth registration and
made compulsory by the Births, Deaths, Etc. (Compulsory Registration) Act for informants (notifiers) to
notify NPC of deaths in their locality via Medical Certificate of Cause of Death-MCCD (wrongly referred
to as the death certificate) which is issued by a qualified medical doctor or informant to notify the NPC
directly.”
Keshinro added that Pathologist Office of the NPF got a grant to raise the awareness on Death Notification and Registration in Lagos State.
“After identifying a gap with the death registration process, the Force Pathologist Office which I
oversee under the leadership of the Assistant Inspector General of Police, Nigeria Police, Medical
Services, CP (Dr) Olubunmi Ogunsanwo was awarded a GGP grant with the aim of increasing Death
Notification and Registration in Lagos State.
“This led to the collaborative partnership with the statutory agency tasked with the vital events registration, the National Population Commission. The GGP project will intervene in the current death notification and registration process through programmatic activities with infusion of simple sustainable IT tools and awareness as well as networking
among major stakeholders,” he said.
