24.8 Million Nigerians Face Threat Of Deep Poverty; FAO Warns

While Nigerians continue to struggle with the economic crisis, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has warned in a report that 24.8 million Nigerians might be pushed into deep poverty between June to August this year.

"Insecurity, especially insurgency in the North East states particularly in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe States still persists; armed banditry and kidnapping for money ransom in some NW states such as Katsina, Sokoto and Kaduna state as well as North Central states of Benue and Niger which have also lingered," FAO stated, The Guardian reported.

The report also disclosed that there are 26 states that have around 17.7 million people, who are currently going through a food crisis and their situation might get worse by May.

"Prolonged scarcity of Premium Motor Spirit (PMS), commonly called petrol, and the associated hike in its pump price across the states, has led to the astronomical rise in transport fares and cost of food products in Nigerian markets," FAO continued.

The report noted that due to consistently rising price of food items and agricultural inputs across Nigeria has become one of the reasons for food insecurity.

As per the general consumer price index, there is an increase from 15.7% in Feb. 2022 to 21.9% in Feb. 2023, which is a 39.49% increase within just one year.

The report disclosed that during the current analysis period, "Most of the households in the analyzed areas adopted crisis to worse level livelihood coping measures and the implication is that most households had irreversibly disposed of their assets to meet their food and non-food needs."

"The nutrition situation deduced from the IPC Acute Malnutrition Projection for January to April 2023 covering Adamawa, Borno, and Yobe, as well as Katsina, Sokoto, and Zamfara, shows the prevalence of crisis to worse nutrition situation across the states," the report added.

The report admitted that due to the COVID-19 pandemic, there is a loss of employment and a reduction in household income in the country, which is also contributing to the ongoing crisis.

The Acute Food and Nutrition Insecurity Analysis, which is also known as Cadre Harmonise (CH), done by the United Nations (UN) agency named those 26 states out of 36, that are likely to be most affected.

Abia, Adamawa, Bauchi, Benue, Borno, Cross-River, Edo, Enugu, Gombe, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Kogi, Kwara, Lagos, Nasarawa, Niger, Ogun Plateau, Rivers, Sokoto, Taraba, Yobe, and Zamfara, and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) are the 26 states mentioned in the report.

The report suggested that Nigeria should use CH analysis results as a tool to plan ahead to address the challenges that the population will face in the upcoming months.

"States should consistently strengthen and expand the composition of the State Analysis Task Force (SATF) to ensure plurality," the report suggested.