Originally published in Worthy News
More than 31.8 million Nigerians, including Christians, are acutely short of food due to attacks by Islamic fighters and the removal of fuel subsidies, while deadly flooding also contributed to the crisis, Nigeria’s government and others said on Tuesday.
The announcements indicated a sharp rise in the 18.6 million people assessed as vulnerable to acute food insecurity by the United Nations World Food Programme from October to December 2023.
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“The surge in food commodity prices, which is a result of the removal of fuel subsidy in addition to security challenges, has placed millions of Nigerians in a precarious situation,” said Nigeria’s Ministry of Budget and Economic Planning.
The study on food security cited by the government was carried out by development partners such as the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition, and the German development agency GIZ.
“Finally and finally, the kitchen is empty,” Paul Jongas, a Christian farmer and evangelist in Abuja, told Worthy News on Tuesday.
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He asked for “prayers for a miracle tonight” as his agricultural land did not yet provide enough food for him, his wife, and their four young children.
“Please pray for me and my family again. There are just two weeks to the harvest, but sincerely, my children are starving due to a lack of food,” he said.
Farmers’ hardship
Adding to difficulties for farmers in several areas of the country is flooding that reportedly killed at least 49 people and left thousands displaced after heavy rains caused flooding in Nigeria’s northeast.
Three northeastern states, Jigawa, Adamawa, and Taraba, have been hard hit by floods, with 41 344 people displaced, according to National Emergency Management Authority (NEMA) spokesperson Manzo Ezekiel.
Earlier, Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation of some 237 million people, experienced its worst flood in more than a decade
That flooding in 2022, which killed more than 600 people, displaced around 1.4 million and destroyed 440 000 hectares of farmland, according to official estimates.
Additionally, farmers, especially Christians, face attacks by armed groups wielding guns and machetes, including Islamists attacking Christians.
Thousands of Christians have been killed in recent years by these groups, Worthy News and other outlets reported.
Security forces also suffer, including Nigerian police saying two of its officers were killed and three left unconscious on Sunday after an attack involving knives and explosives by the Islamic Movement of Nigeria in the capital, Abuja, on Sunday.
Banned group
The Shi’ite group was banned by Nigeria in 2019 after violent protests demanding the release of its jailed leader.
Nigeria’s army accused the group of wanting to assassinate a former chief of army staff, and it allegedly retaliated, killing more than 300 of the group’s members in 2015. its leader, El Zakazy, was imprisoned from 2015 till 2021.
Yet there was some hope, too, as Nigerian authorities secured the release of 20 students who were kidnapped this month on their way to a convention in the north-central state of Benue last week, they said.
The victims, who are medical and dental students, were headed to the southeastern state of Enugu when gunmen abducted them.
However, the attacks have forced many farmers to leave their fields, contributing to higher food prices and soaring inflation as Nigeria faces the worst cost-of-living crisis in a generation.
President Bola Tinubu, who took office in May 2023, removed fuel subsidies to cut down on government spending.
However, instead, the move led to a rise in the cost of transportation.
Bishops concerned
The Catholic Bishops of Nigeria warned that “unless the government seriously addresses” the issues of “widespread poverty, hardship, and corruption”. Nigeria should be ready to contend with more protests soon.
Archbishop Lucius Ugorji of Owerri, the president of the Catholic Bishops Conference (CBCN), raised the alarm Sunday as they gathered in Auchi, in Nigeria’s Edo State.
The bishop’s appeal followed protests against President Tinubu’s capabilities.
Yet the rallies turned violent in some areas, particularly in northern states like Kaduna, where several demonstrators have been killed.
Worthy News learned that curfews have been imposed in various states, including Kano and Plateau, to curb the unrest.
Archbishop Ugorji condemned the violence by some rioters but also the killing of some protesting youths by security forces.
He warned: “As long as the nation is afflicted with poverty, hardship, and corruption, and as long as the future of youths in our nation remains bleak, we continue to experience protest.”
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