Posted by Mr. Peter Obi, a presidential candidate for the Labour Party (LP), has expressed his sadness over a warning from UNICEF that 31.5 million Nigerians will face severe food shortages and acute hunger from June to August 2024.
He claims that out of 125 countries ranked on the Global Hunger Index, Nigeria ranks 109th, placing it among the 20 hungriest nations in the world.
After being alerted to the approaching danger, Obi advised that the government must act swiftly to increase food production in the country to combat the growing hunger and the resulting resentment among the populace.
The former governor of Anambra State bemoaned the country’s increasingly precarious economic position in a Wednesday post on his X handle, citing the country’s exorbitant cost of living and inflation rates as contributing factors.
He lamented the fact that many Nigerian families now spend nearly all of their money on food, while everyone else is left to guess about how to pay for other household needs.
I urge us to work hard and put measures in place to help us avert the approaching risk of an extra number of Nigerians facing famine by June this year. This information has been presented to us, and we must act swiftly.
Nearly 25 million Nigerians may be hungry between June and August 2023 unless immediate measures were not made, according to the Cadre Harmonisé, a UNICEF publication that warned of this danger in January 2023.
Along with the rest of Nigeria, I was terrified about the looming food crisis and pleaded with the government to act quickly.
Roughly 26.5 million people in Nigeria were estimated to be at danger of starvation by the year 2023. It remained a major worry for Nigerians in 2024 that, as of the end of 2023, an estimated 26.5 million people were at risk of becoming hungry.
The same publication, Cadre Harmonisé, has issued a new warning that 31.5 million more Nigerians could face severe food instability and acute hunger from June to August of 2024. This is quite disheartening.
Now that our economy is plagued by rising inflation and a high cost of living, the situation has grown more complicated. Nigeria is now one of the world’s 20 hungriest nations, rating 109 out of 125 according to the Global Hunger Index.
“Food costs now account for nearly all of a typical Nigerian household’s budget, leaving the rest of the family’s spending to pure speculation.
The best approach to end hunger in Nigeria, as I have long argued, is to shift our national focus from consumption to production, which requires heavy investment in agriculture through the complete exploration and cultivation of the country’s enormous fertile territory, mostly in the north.
We have been warned of the imminent danger—the increased number of Nigerians who would go hungry by June of this year—so I am pleading with us to put our heads down and do everything in our power to prevent this. We need to act quickly to increase food production so that we can combat the growing hunger and the resulting national rage.
It is imperative that the government provides sufficient support to farmers in order to enhance food production, given the widespread insecurity and terrorist attacks that prevent farmers from engaging in agricultural activities and the detrimental effects of our monetary policies on small businesses in this sector. In the New Nigeria that is within our reach, we will not lose sight of our goal of creating a productive nation.