Jul 6, 2026

WFP Sounds Alarm: 17 Million Nigerians Face Acute Hunger Crisis in North

By Afolabi Olaiya Idowu in news

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ABUJA, Nigeria — The African Democratic Congress (ADC) has expressed profound concern over the latest World Food Programme (WFP) assessment, which paints a grim picture of Nigeria’s worsening food security situation.

According to the UN agency, more than 17 million Nigerians in nine conflict-affected northern states are now experiencing Crisis, Emergency, or Catastrophic levels of food insecurity — an increase of nearly two million from earlier projections.

Borno State alone accounts for over three million acutely food-insecure people, while the combined figure for Borno, Adamawa, and Yobe has climbed to 6.2 million.

The WFP identifies key drivers including expanding insecurity, attacks on farming communities, mass displacement, restricted humanitarian access, and declining support for vulnerable populations.

ADC Spokesperson Bolaji Abdullahi described the crisis as a government-created humanitarian disaster resulting from failure to secure lives, protect farmers, and tackle the cost-of-living emergency.

He emphasized that these are not political slogans but verified findings from the world’s leading humanitarian agency on hunger.

The ADC stressed that food security must be treated as a national survival issue. Their manifesto proposes placing it on the agenda of the National Security Council, prioritizing smallholder farmers with improved inputs and mechanization, activating abandoned dams for irrigation, and investing in storage infrastructure to reduce post-harvest losses.

This report comes at a time when many Nigerian families struggle with basic meals, highlighting the urgent need for coordinated action across government levels to reverse the trend and restore agricultural productivity.

While the situation remains dire, the heightened attention from political parties, humanitarian organizations, and the international community could catalyze meaningful interventions.

Nigerians hope that the WFP’s sobering assessment will spur decisive steps to combat hunger before the crisis deepens further.