The World Food Programme, WFP has told President Bola Tinubu that the only panacea to food security in Nigeria is for his government to pursue the enthronement of peace in the Northeast zone of the country. The global institution says that the restoration of peace in the region will mitigate the crisis of the projected 33.1 million Nigerians facing food insecurity by 2025.
This looming crisis, anticipated during the lean season from June to August, was highlighted by Chi Lael, head of communications for the United Nations WFP, in the recent Cadre Harmonisé analysis on food insecurity and malnutrition.
According to WFP, the number of people experiencing emergency levels of food insecurity in Nigeria is projected to rise from 1 million in the 2024 lean season to 1.8 million in 2025, marking an 80 percent increase.
It said, “Nationally, the number of people facing Emergency levels (Phase 4) of food insecurity is projected to rise. Although no populations are classified as Catastrophe (Phase 5), those in Emergency (Phase 4) are expected to increase from 1 million in the peak of the 2024 lean season to 1.8 million in 2025—a significant 80 percent rise.”
Now, the crisis is expected to assume a larger dimension in the region because, the world body says that “Trend analyses for the northeastern states indicate consistently high or rising food insecurity levels since 2018. The number of people requiring urgent assistance has increased by at least 4 million annually during the lean season since June 2020.”
WFP Country Director David Stevenson said the hunger crisis, exacerbated by conflict in the Northeast, requires urgent intervention.
He said, “Restoring peace in the northeast is critical for us to build pathways to production and achieve the northeast’s potential as the food basket of the country.”
The report noted that “Approximately 5.4 million children and nearly 800,000 pregnant and breastfeeding women are at risk of acute malnutrition or wasting in six of the most affected states.”
The states most impacted include Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe in the Northeast, and Sokoto, Katsina, and Zamfara in the Northwest.
Of the 5.4 million child food crisis, the report noted that, “1.8 million children could face Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) and require critical nutrition treatment.”
Addressing this crisis, United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Country Representative Ms. Cristian Munduate stressed that a slow response to the data is a “call to death.”
She said, “Children are at the centre of the food insecurity crisis and face irreversible consequences – both physical and cognitive, and potentially even death. It is our moral imperative to ensure that the right of every child to adequate food and nutrition is upheld.”
The good news is that in doing this the government is not going to walk the valley alone without support. The FAO Representative and interim to Nigeria and ECOWAS Dominique Koffy Kouacou said, “FAO, alongside our partners, is committed to implementing sustainable solutions that address the underlying causes of food insecurity and malnutrition. By improving agri-food systems, we aim to meet immediate needs while building lasting progress.”
Will the report impact government efforts at tackling food crisis? There are immediate expectation that it will. The Permanent Secretary of the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security (FMAFS), Temitope Fashedemi, pledged to use the report’s findings to guide food and nutrition security interventions across federal agencies, humanitarian organisations, and other partners in Nigeria.
Fashedemi was represented by Dr. Nuhu Kilishi Mohammed, Director of Nutrition and food Security at the ministry.