The World Food Programme says the number of people in dire need of food aid in Nigeria is expected to rise to 33 million by June 2025. The group blames the food insecurity issue on unfavorable weather conditions, insurgent attacks, and a surge in food prices resulting from the removal of a fuel subsidy.
Thursday, November 14, 2024
Video - Millions of Nigerians go hungry due to severe floods, insecurity, rising food costs
Osimhen strike books Nigeria place at Africa Cup of Nations
In spite of not playing on Thursday, other results also saw South Africa, Gabon and Uganda secure places at the 24-nation showcase of African football, which kicks off in Morocco on December 21 next year.
Sudan missed a chance to qualify after a shock 4-0 loss to Niger -- a result which offered a glimmer of hope to Ghana ahead of a must-win match in Angola on Friday.
Nigeria were trailing against Benin in Group D before reigning African Footballer of the Year Osimhen equalised nine minutes from time to secure a 1-1 draw in Abidjan.
Mohamed Tijani had put Benin ahead after 16 minutes as they sought to repeat a shock triumph over Nigeria in a 2026 World Cup qualifier at the same stadium last year.
Nigeria top the table with 11 points after five rounds, leaving Benin (seven), Rwanda (five) and Libya (four) to fight for the second qualification place.
Nigeria host Rwanda on Monday at the same time as Libya will have home advantage over Benin. Libya got back into contention by beating Rwanda 1-0 through a late Fahd Mohamed goal in Kigali.
A thrilling 3-2 victory for South Sudan over Congo Brazzaville in Juba ensured Uganda and South Africa would qualify from Group K before they meet on Friday in Kampala.
Congo, needing maximum points to keep their slim hopes alive, twice surrendered the lead before being reduced to 10 men on 78 minutes when Bryan Passi was sent off.
South Sudan took full advantage of having an extra man to snatch victory soon after through substitute Data Elly.
- Seesaw struggle -
Ali al Abdi scored in the third minute of added time to give 10-man Tunisia a 3-2 victory over Madagascar in Pretoria and qualification from Group A.
In a seesaw struggle, Madagascar twice equalised before gaining a late second-half advantage when Wajdi Kechrida was red-carded.
But the Indian Ocean islanders fell behind again four minutes later and defeat stretched a winless run in AFCON qualifiers to 15 matches.
Comoros, shock winners over Tunisia last month, will fill the other qualifying place from the section if they beat the Gambia on Friday.
Sudan needed one point from a clash with Niger in Lome to clinch qualification from Group F, and eliminate four-time champions Ghana.
But the east Africans fell behind after only six minutes when Daniel Sosah scored, and he converted a penalty in first-half added time to widen the lead to three goals.
There was no way back for the rattled Sudanese in the second half with Ousseini Badamassi completing the rout by scoring on 51 minutes.
Ghana must defeat leaders Angola in Luanda, and Niger in Accra on Monday, and hope Angola beat Sudan if they are to avoid the humiliation of failing to qualify.
An unbeaten run by Burkina Faso in Group L ended when they fell 1-0 to 2022 AFCON champions Senegal in Bamako. Habib Diarra scored the lone goal seven minutes from time.
There are 10 qualifiers scheduled for Friday when Botswana, Comoros, Mali, Mozambique, Sudan, Zambia and Zimbabwe could qualify.
Should all seven secure berths, it would leave just two qualifying places up for grabs.
Guinea could fill one on Saturday if they beat the Democratic Republic of Congo in Group H and Tanzania fail to take maximum points against Ethiopia.
Benin, Rwanda or Libya would complete the line-up.
Algeria, Angola, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, DR Congo, Egypt, Equatorial Guinea, Ivory Coast and Senegal had secured places before Thursday.
Morocco are automatic participants as hosts, but are taking part in qualifying to gain competitive match practice.
Nigeria acquires $134 million loan for farming investment
Nigeria has secured a loan of $134 million (€127 million) to invest in farming, Agriculture Minister Abubakar Kyari announced on Thursday.
President Bola Tinubu's government has previously said that boosting food security is a goal of his administration.
What did the government say about the plan?
Kyari said in a post on social media that the plan aimed "to boost productivity in key staple crops, including wheat, rice, and maize, for both dry and wet season farming."
He said that Nigeria's federal government planned to "provide subsidized agricultural inputs to 250,000 wheat farmers and 150,000 rice farmers this season" as part of its agricultural support program.
The minister said the government would "establish a minimum guarantee price for crops, helping to stabilize farmers' incomes and reduce reliance on imports."
The $134 million loan was secured from the African Development Bank.
Nigeria faces food crisis
Around 25 million Nigerians face "acute food insecurity," according to figures from the Cadre Harmonise — a tool for assessing food security. This number is expected to rise to 33 million in 2025.
The report cited the economic effects of the continuous devaluation of the Nigerian currency, the naira, against the dollar and Tinubu's decision last year to abolish a fuel subsidy that had been in place for decades. In June of this year, annual food-price inflation was recorded at 40.9%.
Northern Nigeria has become increasingly arid due to climate change and deforestation while violence and desertification have sparked conflicts between farming communities and nomadic herdsmen.
Last month, 1.6 million hectares of farmland were destroyed in central Nigeria by torrential rains.Western and central African countries were also hit by flooding in September.
Nigeria launches 'Human Rights Defenders' forum
The Nigerian National Human Rights Commission on Wednesday inaugurated a forum targeting rights violations in the West African nation.
The Human Rights Defenders Forum was held on the sidelines of an NHRC meeting to review the state of human rights in Nigeria.
The initiative is a partnership between the NHRC and the European Union.
Officials say the forum, comprising various human rights groups, will be responsible for ensuring greater protection of civil liberties in Nigeria and serve as a unified platform for rights defenders to interact and address common challenges.
NHRC Executive Director Anthony Ojukwu said, "We're gathered here not only to discuss the current state of human rights in Nigeria, but also to start to chart a way forward — one that ensures safer protection for civil liberties, fosters democratic consolidation and safeguards the fundamental rights of all Nigerians, especially those who stand up for the rights of others."
The meeting comes amid a recent spate of human rights violations, including a crackdown on antigovernment demonstrations in August and the prolonged detention of minors who took part.
The delegates also discussed digital rights, privacy protection, gender-based violence and child abandonment by parents.
The NHRC said security forces were contributing to human rights violations in Nigeria.
Hilary Ogbonna, a senior adviser to the agency, said, "The majority of these violators are the Nigerian police, the military, bandits and parents of children. We also saw an upsurge of sexual and gender-based violence.
“But that is not as worrisome as 4,300 [cases of] child abandonment," he said.
The Nigerian police and military have not responded to being named as violators of human rights, but last week, the NHRC found the military culpable for infanticide and extrajudicial killings during a 2016 operation in a remote village in northeastern Borno State.
The NHRC also raised concerns about the growing threat of insecurity in Nigeria and its impact on the rights of the people.
The commission said it recorded more than 1,700 cases of kidnappings and about 1,500 killings between January and September this year.
Damilola Decker, programs officer with the Nigeria-based group Global Rights, said economic vulnerability is one of the reasons that the rights situation is deteriorating.
"What we're observing under the [Nigerian President Bola] Tinubu administration is that civic space is under attack, attacks on journalists, attacks on the rights of people to protest,” Decker said.
“We're also seeing economic and sociocultural rights of Nigerians being impacted majorly because of the harsh economic conditions especially related to energy prices,” he said. “It's cascading — crime is on the rise; the state of insecurity is on the increase."
By Timothy Obiezu, VOA
Millions of Nigerians go hungry as floods compound hardship
Unrelenting price rises and a brutal insurgency had already made it hard for Nigerians in northeastern Borno State to feed their families. When a dam collapsed in September, flooding the state capital and surrounding farmland, many people ran out of options.
Now they queue for handouts in camps for those displaced by fighting between extremist Boko Haram rebels and the military. When those run out, they seek work on local farms where they risk being killed or raped by local bandits.
"I can't even cry anymore. I'm too tired," said Indo Usman, who tried to start again in the state capital Maiduguri, rearing animals for the two annual Muslim holy days, after years of repeatedly fleeing rebel attacks in rural Borno.
The flood washed that all away, driving her, her husband and their six children to a bare room at Gubio, an unfinished housing project about 96 km (60 miles) northwest of Maiduguri that has become a displacement camp.
Torrential rains and floods in 29 of Nigeria's 36 states this year have destroyed more than 1.5 million hectares of cropland, affecting more than nine million people, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.
Climate change is a factor, as is Nigeria's poorly maintained or non-existent infrastructure as well as vulnerabilities caused by the weakening Naira currency and the scrapping of a government fuel subsidy.
The cost of staples like rice and beans has doubled, tripled or even quadrupled in a year, depending on location -- an unmanageable shock for millions of poor families.
Mass kidnappings for ransom in the northwest and conflict between farmers and pastoralists in the central belt, traditionally the nation's bread basket, have also disrupted agriculture and squeezed food supplies.
'HUNGRIEST OF THE HUNGRY'
Roughly 40% of Nigeria's more than 200 million people live below the international poverty line of $2.15 per person per day, the World Bank estimates.
Already, 25 million people live in acute food and nutrition insecurity - putting their lives or livelihoods in immediate danger, according to a joint analysis by the government and U.N. agencies. That number is expected to rise to 33 million by next June-August.
"The food crisis in Nigeria is immense because what we are seeing is a crisis within a crisis within a crisis," said Trust Mlambo, head of programme for the northeast at the World Food Programme, in an interview with Reuters in Maiduguri.
With international donors focused on emergencies in Gaza, Ukraine and Sudan, Mlambo said there was not enough funding to fully meet Nigeria's growing need for food aid.
"We are really prioritising the hungriest of the hungry," he said.
In Borno, the Alau dam, upriver from Maiduguri, gave way on Sept. 9, four days after state officials had told the public it was secure. Local residents and engineers had been warning that it was under strain.
Hundreds of people were killed in the resulting flood, according to aid workers who did not wish to be identified for fear of offending the state government. A spokesperson for the state government did not respond to requests for comment.
Zainab Abubakar, a self-employed tailor in the city who lived in relative comfort with her husband and six children in a house with a refrigerator, was awoken at midnight by water rushing into her bedroom.
They ran for their lives while the flood destroyed their house and carried everything away, including her sewing machine. Now, they are sheltering at Gubio and collecting rice from aid agencies in a plastic bucket. "There is no alternative," she said.
In Banki, on Nigeria's border with Cameroon about 133 km (83 miles) southeast of Maiduguri, Mariam Hassan lost crops of maize, pepper and then okra in repeated flooding of her subsistence farm this year, leaving her with nothing to eat or sell.
"I beg the neighbours or relatives to give me food, not even for me but for my children, for us to survive," said Hassan, who has eight children. "The situation has turned me into a beggar."
By Ope Adetayo, Reuters
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