More than 33 million Nigerians will go hungry next year, a figure rising sharply as food prices soar and exacerbate the effect of war and climate change, according to a report released Friday.
The “Cadre Harmonisé” report, written by Nigerian officials, United Nations agencies and large humanitarian NGOs, takes stock twice a year of the nutritional situation in 26 crisis states in northern and central Nigeria.
According to the most recent figures, 25.1 million Nigerians are already experiencing “acute food insecurity”, even at the peak of this year’s harvest season, following floods and soaring prices.
This figure is expected to increase to 33.1 million next year, as the collapsing naira (Nigeria’s currency) further drives up the prices of food imports and the end of fuel subsidies makes their delivery and distribution expensive. .
“Approximately 5.4 million children and nearly 800,000 pregnant or breastfeeding women are at risk of severe malnutrition or degeneration in six of the most affected states,” underlines a press release from the World Food Program (WFP). “Among them, around 1.8 million children could suffer from severe acute malnutrition and need life-saving nutritional treatment.”
Northeast Nigeria has been ravaged by Islamist insurgencies since 2009, and gangs of bandits and kidnappers operate throughout the north of the country. At the same time, climate change and deforestation have made the region more arid. Violence and desertification have also led to sometimes violent rivalries between agricultural communities and nomadic shepherds.
These long-term challenges have existed for a long time, but the state of the Nigerian economy has played a role in the rise in food prices. The report cites the continued devaluation of the Nigerian currency against the dollar and President Bola Tinubu’s decision last year to abolish a decades-old fuel subsidy. A year later, in June 2024, year-on-year food price inflation reached 40.9%.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the price of beans soared by 282% between October 2023 and October 2024, and that of locally grown rice by 153%. Then, last month, torrential rains and severe flooding devastated a portion of central Nigeria, including 1.6 million hectares of agricultural land, according to estimates by the Food and Agriculture Organization ( FAO) of the United Nations.
“Combined annual losses in maize, sorghum and rice production in flooded areas could reach 1.1 million tonnes. This makes it possible to feed 13 million people for a year,” the press release said. The Tinubu government responded to food shortages and inflation by temporarily suspending customs fees on some imports.
The United Nations has urged foreign donors and the Nigerian government to do more to stem the crisis.
