3 months ago
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FOR a largely agricultural country, it is incomprehensible that 172 million Nigerians cannot afford a healthy diet, according to the State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2024 report.
The report offers grim statistics underlining Nigeria’s massive failure to meet basic human needs. It ranks Nigeria alongside Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Syria, and Yemen—five countries that have faced a persistent food crisis in the last eight years.
As of 2022, about 172 million or 78.7 percent of Nigerians could not afford a healthy diet. It showed that the proportion of the population unable to afford a healthy diet has increased steadily since 2017. This is apparent.
The undernourished Nigerians rose from 143.8 million in 2017 to 149 million in 2018, growing to 149 million in 2019 and rising sharply to 162.5 million in 2020. It noted that 167.4 million Nigerians could not afford a decent meal in 2021. That figure was 172 million in 2022.
The report stated that as of 2022, a Nigerian would need about $3.83 (N1,767.55) per day to afford a healthy diet. The cost of a healthy diet since 2017 has been progressively increasing. The report stated that Nigeria had the fifth highest cost of a healthy diet in West Africa, behind Mauritania ($4.86 per day), Ghana ($4.29 per day), Cape Verde ($4.07 per day) and the Niger Republic ($3.96).
A 2022 NBS report stated that 133 million citizens suffered from multidimensional poverty. The World Bank projected that seven million people joined that figure in 2023 because of the petrol subsidy removal and the merger of the naira exchange rates.
The latest ‘Cost of Healthy Diet’ report, produced by the NBS and the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, showed that the national average cost of a healthy diet rose to N1,241 per adult per day in June 2024 from N858 in January 2024.
The Cost of a Healthy Diet, which refers to the cost per adult per day, excluding the cost of transportation and meal preparation, increased by 19.2 percent month-on-month to N1,241 in June 2024 from N1,041 in May. The CoHD is the least expensive combination of locally available items that meet globally consistent food-based dietary guidelines.
In June, the average CoHD was highest in the South-West at N1,545 per adult per day, compared to N956 per adult per day in the North-West. The NBS noted that the CoHD has risen faster than general inflation and food inflation. Nigeria’s food inflation increased to 40.87 percent in June as prices of staples continued to trend upward. Headline inflation increased to a 28-year high of 34.2 percent in June 2024 compared with 22.8 percent in June 2023 and up from 34.0 percent in May 2024.
The reports cement concerns about pervasive hunger in Nigeria. In the 2023 Global Hunger Index, Nigeria was ranked 109th out of 125 countries, with a score of 28.3 percent. Countries that scored between 20.0 and 34.9 have a serious level of hunger. Nigeria is the 16th on the list amongst countries with sufficient data to calculate the 2023 GHI scores.
It highlights the scourge of nutritional deficiencies that has ravaged the population in the last decade, with women and children mostly affected. Nigeria has the greatest number of stunted children in Africa, and ranks second globally, with more than 10 million stunted children, per Nutrition International.
In 2018, 32 percent of children under five were found to be stunted, and nearly 20 percent were underweight. Besides a lack of basic protein and energy, the immediate causes of undernutrition include deficiencies in micronutrients, such as vitamin A, iron, iodine, and zinc.
Women and girls experience high rates of malnutrition, with 58 percent of women found to be anaemic. Underlying causes of malnutrition in Nigeria include poor infant and young child feeding practices, inadequate access to healthcare, water, and sanitation, and a high level of poverty.
This situation worsened over the past year as many Nigerians are now substituting meat and fish with carrots and cucumber to prepare stew. In the past year alone, prices of staples have seen an unprecedented rise. The prices of rice rose by 129 percent, garri (79 percent) beans (217 percent), bread (72 percent), yam (428 percent), and tomato (275 percent). A kilogramme of frozen chicken is N6,500, up from N2,500 a year ago, while a kilo of turkey sells for N8,500. A single egg is N300.
That more than three-quarters of Nigerians cannot feed properly amounts to state failure, given that Nigeria has almost 70 million hectares of arable land. Data compiled by Picodi, an international e-commerce organisation, shows that the average Nigerian household spends about 59 percent of its income on food. That is the highest in the world. This is compared with South Africa (21.3 percent), Ghana (39.2 percent), Malaysia (27.5 percent), and the UK (8.7 percent).
The rising population, decreased food sufficiency and reliance on imports, naira devaluation, higher fuel and transportation costs, armed conflicts, and banditry have all contributed to the food crisis.
Food access has been particularly affected by persistent violence in Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe and armed banditry and kidnapping in Katsina, Sokoto, Kaduna, Benue, and Niger.
The government has implemented initiatives to boost the sector, but it continues to underperform despite huge potential in rice, cassava, wheat, livestock/poultry, and fisheries.
In July, the Federal Government announced a 150-day duty-free import window for food imported through land and sea borders. The impact has yet to be felt. An ad hoc arrangement to supply bags of rice at N40,000 per bag to civil servants was halted last week as beneficiaries reportedly resold the rice at N85,000 per bag. These measures should be reviewed to hasten the desired effects.
The food crisis has been long in coming. Even though agriculture remains the largest contributor to GDP at 22 percent and employs 36 percent of the labour force, low yields, and lack of widespread adoption of modern agricultural practices have hobbled productivity. Nigeria’s tractor density is 0.27 hp/hectare, far below the FAO-recommended tractor density of 1.5 hp/h.
The sector suffers from low yields due to shortages in seedlings and fertiliser supplies and inadequate irrigation and harvesting systems. Storage systems are antiquated, resulting in massive post-harvest losses. The rural roads are shabby.
The Federal Government, despite its proclamations to the contrary, has demonstrated that agriculture is not a priority. The budget for agriculture was N362.9 billion in 2024, representing 1.26 percent of the initial N28.7 trillion. Nigeria is a signatory to the Maputo Declaration, which specifies a 10 percent budgetary commitment to agriculture for African countries.
The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2024 report called for improvements in the execution and quality of budget spending on food security.
However, the most significant challenge remains insecurity. A situation where farming has become a dangerous occupation makes the case for state policing more compelling. The federal police have proved ineffective in tackling banditry.t
It is severely under-resourced, with about 371,000 personnel for 230 million citizens. This is a ratio of 1:621 compared with the UN-recommended ratio of 1:460. Even at that, police protection is disproportionately skewed in favour of the elite, with some private persons guarded by up to 10 officers each. Some police officers are used as domestic staff, while dozens of towns and villages lack police presence. Okomu Oil Plc recently threatened to shut down operations in Edo State due to repeated attacks by militants that left workers dead.
Some states have formed special security and vigilante corps, which have tamed banditry and kidnappings within their respective jurisdictions. These arrangements should be formalised to strengthen security nationwide and allow states to meet peculiar security needs.
The military response to insecurity in the North has not been successful, and there is a need to ramp up the deployment of technology-based assets such as drones for surveillance, intelligence, and attacks. Local communities must be involved in supporting the military and collaborators for material gain, isolated, and punished.
In the interim, the federal and state governments must revamp the school feeding programmes, especially for primary school pupils. Children must not be allowed to go hungry, while state officials lavish public funds on inanities.
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