Nneka Nwogwugwu
A food safety consultant, Mr John Funsho Tehinse, has faulted the statistics made in a recent report by the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) that 25 million Nigerians are at high risk of food insecurity in 2023.
NatureNews recalls that UNICEF on 16th January, published the report on their website that nearly 25 million Nigerians are at risk of facing hunger between June and August 2023.
According to the October 2022 Cadre Harmonisé, a government-led and UN-supported food and nutrition analysis carried out twice a year, the projected increase from the estimated 17 million people currently are at risk of food insecurity.
The UN agency said continued conflict, climate change, inflation and rising food prices are key drivers of this alarming trend.
Food access has been affected by persistent violence in the north-east states of Borno, Adamawa and Yobe (BAY) and armed banditry and kidnapping in states such as Katsina, Sokoto, Kaduna, Benue and Niger.
Of the 17 million people who are currently food insecure, 3 million are in the northeast BAY states. Without immediate action, this figure is expected to increase to 4.4 million in the lean season.
Children are the most vulnerable to food insecurity. Approximately 6 of the 17 million food-insecure Nigerians today are children under 5 living in Borno, Adamawa, Yobe, Sokoto, Katsina and Zamfara states. There is a serious risk of mortality among children attributed to acute malnutrition, the report said.
Reacting to this, Tehinse said that the number given by UNICEF was a little bit more than 50%.
He said, If you suffering from multidimensional poverty, you are likely to suffer from hunger and more disease. That figure may be on the low side.
Speaking on the present economic situation, Tehinse decried that apart from insecurity, the increasing rate of poverty and lack of access to food are factors contributing to hunger in Nigeria.
He said, If you are poor, it means that nutritionally you dont have enough to feed. How many of the 25 million are children and women of productive age? From the look of things, more children and women of productive age will suffer from malnutrition.
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These are no good news for Nigeria, we are not developing the way that we are expected to.
Tehinse who spoke on the governments interventions to ameliorate the situation of predicted hunger, said that the Nigerian government has some palliative measures but it is like the drop of water in the ocean.
He said, How do you give palliative and cover all vulnerable people? Majority of the people are from rural areas where they cant access electricity and good roads.
The government has adequate programmes to distribute this food but some factors are affecting them.
The impact is very small even though government is spending a lot of money. Government can only do palliative measures and whatever measures there are doing is not sustainable because hen government supplies bags of rice, what will happen after one month?
Security is affecting many things but it is not the only thing affecting foid security. It is a gamut of factors coming together but insecurity is a major factor.
The expert also said that hunger is now observed nationwide and not only on states prone to insecurity.
“Why UNICEF mentioned some states in the Northeast is because of insecurity. But the insecurity is not only in North east but nationwide, affecting other regions.
Insecurity has also affected farmers and rural farming. But now you cultivate but you cant feed much because of insecurity. If though, the government is trying to contain the difficult things, the food we are having is not enough to feed people.
He urged the Nigerian government to make all efforts to tackle insecurity.
We cannot be food secured, if we are not self secured, he added.
Also speaking to an environmental activist on the UNICEF report, Nnimmo Bassey of Health of Mother Earth Foundation (HOMEF), said that the Federal Government in their efforts to tackle food insecurity, have for some years, been introducing genetically modified organisms (GMOs) into foods.
He warned that the intention of introducing GMOS in Nigeria for the purpose of feeding Nigerias population, is a deceitful reason.
He urged the government to empower farmers by providing basic farming equipment and tools for them to produce natural foods for Nigerians.
