By Femi Oyelola
The Cadre Harmonisé (CH), a unified tool for consensual analysis of acute food and nutrition insecurity in the Sahel and West African Region has declared that
15.6 million children in Nigeria are facing hunger in the lead-up to the lean season starting in June, according to a new analysis by Save the Children. The number of hungry children is 25% higher than in the same period in 2023 and is likely the result of increasing insecurity, protracted conflict, banditry and rising food prices in the country, the analysis revealed.
This prognostication comes as a prophecy already fulfilled, because along Muhammadu Buhari Way, a very strategic road in the Kaduna metropolis that connects many parts of the Crocodile City have
an ugly scenario of men and women being seen with their children on the pavement, looking for favour from passers-by.
One of them, Hajara Abdullahi, said she escaped from bandits’ attack in her home State of Katsina to Kaduna, and the only available means of survival for her is begging to get something for her four children to eat even though most times she is unlucky.
Similarly, Easter Boniface of Refinery Junction tells a touching story of how bandits sacked her village. She said she is in Kaduna to raise money to move to Abuja with her children whom she always walks around with as her daily routine.
Like Hajara and Easter, many Nigerians have fallen to the poverty line due to several factors.
According to Dr Jerry Thomas of Garden of Hope Hospital Abuja, Nigeria is one of the most populous countries in the world with more than 200 million people maintaining the health and well-being of this growing population, certain things are sine qua non — basic amenities, food and shelter. These need to be available, affordable and accessible to all citizens, especially poor and vulnerable groups.
But Mallam Sani Ahmad of the Kaduna Polytechnic expressed the view that there are various challenges along the food value chain of production, distribution, processing and storage.
“These include climate change, insurgency and conflicts in many parts of the country, natural disasters and pandemic-related shocks, which all affect food production and push food prices up. Given the scale of these challenges for Nigeria, achieving Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2 of zero hunger and other related SDGs may be a tall order.”
He premised that one of the terrible manifestations of widespread deprivation in Nigeria is child poverty, the result of insufficient family livelihoods. Many Nigerians do not earn $1 per day. Nationally, about 43% of Nigerians (89 million people) live below the poverty line, while another 25% (53 million people) are vulnerable. For a country with massive wealth and a huge population to support commerce, a well-developed economy, and plenty of natural resources, the level of poverty remains unacceptable.
Also, Save the Children Nigeria (SCI,) recently raised the alarm that 15.6 million children in Nigeria are facing hunger in the lead-up to the lean season starting in June which is a result, of increasing insecurity, protracted conflict, banditry and rising food prices in the country.
The Country Director of SCI Nigeria, Duncan Harvey, said: “An already dire hunger situation in the country is gradually going from bad to worse as violence, insecurity and rising prices combine to leave over 15 million children hungry in Nigeria. Hunger exists nationwide, but the situation in the north where violence is rife is particularly dire. In Borno, Yobe, Katsina and Zamfara, one in three children do not know where their next meal will come from.
The SCI Director lamented that children in Nigeria who make up one of the largest child populations in the world – have already endured far too much, as millions face conflict, violence and exploitation.
“This year, one in six children will go hungry – an increase from last year. Urgent action must be taken to prioritise the needs of children to stop this devastating trend and protect innocent lives. If not, armed groups will continue to carry out brutal attacks, drive up food prices, and push more families to starvation.
“Save the Children is also calling for greater collaboration between governments, development and humanitarian organisations, climate groups, and the private sector. Children and other community members need to be able to have their say in these discussions. No sector or intervention alone can respond to the many causes and vulnerabilities leading to food and nutrition insecurity, but combined, the impact will be more effective, efficient and at scale.
“Save the Children has been working in Nigeria since 2001 and has been responding to the humanitarian crisis in the northeast since 2014. Save the Children is providing food, clean water, nutrition and protection services, sexual and reproductive health care, and education to families across Nigeria. Save the Children also provides technical support to the government on policy changes and reforms, especially in critical sectors such as health, education, and social protection.”He said
Reacting to this, Acting Executive Director of the African Network for Environment and Economic Justice (ANEEJ), Mr Leo Atakpu, said it’s painful that farmers are not allowed to go to farms, some have been killed, their livelihoods destroyed, and that is the genesis of the looming hunger in the country.
He however advised that it is important federal government intensifies its efforts in the tracking down of bandits and terrorists and flushes them out of the forests to make the place safe for farmers to produce food crops.
He explained that June to August is the cropping and harvest season and research is already available that 15.8 million children will go hungry during the period that there is supposed to be bountiful harvest In the land.
“So the Federal government must take steps to preserve some food in the food banks across the country to ensure that people do not face a serious epidemic as a result of any crisis that will result from some of these activities that have been enumerated
“It is also important that the government has some meetings with stakeholders in that region to discuss these issues.
“I’m happy that some governors from the North have been having a series of meetings to discuss these issues, I think there was a recent move by some of the governors to go to the U.N. to discuss these issues and provide a solution to them.
“ I think the governors of the region, traditional rulers, and the elders should come together.
“Leaders of CAN, JNI and other stakeholders, should come together to discuss how best to reduce the issues of banditry, and conflicts in the region because without visiting the root of the problem, it will be difficult to get the right solution.
“Visiting the root cause of the problem will be to use both kinetic and non-kinetic approaches, as the military would say. To deal with the situation, you need to have a dialogue with the bandits’ leaders for them to leave the forest so that the place will be safe for farmers to grow their crops.
“Because in the long run, whoever they think they are campaigning for, will be the one to suffer because there’s no advocacy you’ll say you are doing where the commonman is suffering; there is no big man that has suffered from what the bandits and terrorists have been doing, it is the poor man.
“There’s a need for dialogue, stakeholders’ conversation, there’s a need for a kinetic and non-kinetic approach to deal with the situation in the region, there’s need to flush out bandits from the region so farmers can be comfortable in going to farms,” he said.
In another reaction, the Chairman of Kaduna State Committee on Food and Nutrition, Bashir Muhammad, said even though insecurity is one of the challenges confronting food supply and nutrition in the state, the state government is committed to funding and ensuring viable policies to tackle malnutrition in the state.
Mr Muhammad, who doubles as the Permanent Secretary, of Kaduna State Planning and Budget Commission, while speaking during a one-day quarterly Coordination and Review meeting of the State Committee on Food and Nutrition (SCFN) held in Kaduna on 23rd April 2024, said stakeholders and MDAs in food and nutrition in the state were brought together to contribute their quota in reducing the scourge so no fear of any looming hunger.
He added that the state government stood firm on funding all areas of food and nutrition in all its LGAs.
“I don’t think funding is a challenge for the state, rather the issues of insecurity in some of the LGAs. Chairmen of LGAs do contribute a certain amount of money monthly for food and nutrition,” he said.
Corroborating this, Rev Musa Abraham said he is optimistic that the federal government and Kaduna state government are well prepared to combat the anticipated hunger.
He said that the major challenge that the farmers in the Northwest region face is insecurity, noting, however, that the security agencies are top of the game.
However, Kaduna State Coordinator of Civil Society Scaling Up Nutrition in Nigeria ( CS-SUNN), Ms Jessica Barthomew, discounted that the country doesn’t even need to do samples outside Nigeria to tell them about the crisis. From this looming economic crisis that we’ve seen, we already perceived that the numbers would be high, she said.
According to her, citizens who are aware of the economic crisis, the rise of the dollar, the increase in fuel cost, the removal of fuel subsidies and security challenges, all contributed to the economic crisis Nigerians are currently facing.
“Our Advocacy at CS-SUNN is that there should be an increased investment in food security. The government needs to put so much money into expanding the production of food crops by training women and youths and also providing subsidized inputs for farmers to farm.
“We also need climate change experts to talk to us about the rainy season, telling us how it will affect the production of food.
“So every Stakeholder needs to be on deck. Thankfully, nutrition is a multi-sectoral issue that needs a multi-sectoral approach and as such, it is important for stakeholders to come on board to see how they can support the government to implement strategies that will improve food security and household income.
“We have seen the President’s commitment to prioritize the provision of social schemes. We have also seen that the Governor of Kaduna State is prioritizing social schemes but it is not enough to give palliatives.
“We also want areas like agriculture, for example, human services, and women empowerment have been able to put their resolved areas of the scheme around agriculture to see that there’s improved production of food this year.
“As advocates, we’ll continue to tell the government to prioritize nutrition in Nigeria, to invest more in nutrition intervention like the use of locally available foods.
“Also, to encourage women to go into home gardening and even schools to practice school gardening so that, we can bring back those days of our passion for agriculture.
“Urbanization is taking place, a lot of people have sold their small spaces to build houses, shops and industries.
“So we need to go back to the drawing table to see how we can improve on home-state dialogue,” she opined.
Similarly, Hajia Hadiza Umar, Executive Director of Hope for Children Initiative, said even though the research by hunger Cadre Harmonisé (CH) food and nutrition analysis, of March 2024 is a presumable report, there is panic because the period to prepare for the looming hungry is short, and rainy period is yet to come.
She suggested immediate training in the healthcare facilities, and schools on alternative means of getting nutritious food during the looming hunger period.
“What are the local foodstuffs that can be used, or vegetables that can be consumed to get the same nutrition? For example, using small carrots in place of tomatoes to get the same results.
“Using local greens to get nutritious food and they won’t have to do something elaborate or costly to eat.
“So those are the emergencies that can be put in place and all hands need to be on deck. It has to be a multisectoral approach, ministries of Agric, Health, Education, the media and other community facilities to achieve this and it has to be fast and also prioritised to get the desired results.”
