₦airaland Forum

NIGERIA is in dire straits. Its citizens are hungry while its children are malnourished. The situation is compounded by farmers in the food basket region fleeing their farms due to terrorism and Fulani herdsmen rapine. President Bola Tinubu, his Minister of Agriculture and the state governors must prioritise agriculture and security, incentivise farmers and build systems that will improve food production and displace food insecurity.

At 24 per cent, agriculture is the highest contributor to GDP. Notwithstanding, food prices, especially rice, beans, eggs, beef, chicken, corn, oils, and yam have hit the roof. Vegetables, fruits, and fish are out of reach in a country teeming with mass privation. An NBS study aggregated 133 million Nigerians living in multidimensional poverty in 2022. The minimum wage of N70,000 a month is abject.

Unwisely, Nigeria depends on food imports to feed its citizens. CBN Governor Olayemi Cardoso says Nigeria’s annual food import bill is $16 billion. This poses a significant challenge because the naira has depreciated heavily since 2023 when Tinubu floated the currency.

As expected, the Minister of Women Affairs, Imaan Sulaiman-Ibrahim, recently in the United Kingdom lamented the 32 per cent rise in malnutrition in children under five in Nigeria. Imaan linked the situation to the erosion of family cohesion, economic pressures, forced migration, and cultural shifts that have displaced strong safety nets for children.

The UN Office on Humanitarian Affairs stated that 33 million Nigerians are food insecure. The figure includes 2.5 million severely malnourished children.

“We are seeing potentially up to 2.5 million children, who would be severely and acutely malnourished…,” Trond Jesen of the UNOCH Nigeria said. Jesen lamented that the annual flooding, rising food prices, and inflation have exacerbated the situation.

In 2024, the World Food Programme warned that 26.5 million Nigerians would suffer severe hunger from June to August. Unfortunately, the government failed to respond effectively to the warning.


The situation is compounded by Nigeria’s growing population. At 237 million per Worldometer, there are too many mouths to feed. Yet, the government lacks a clear plan to feed the spiking population or to control it.

The government has failed to leverage research and development from agricultural institutes, exacerbating issues such as high post-harvest losses.

Farmers face numerous challenges, including poor rural roads, nuisance taxes, flooding, irrigation difficulties, lack of mechanised tools, and inadequate food storage facilities.

The cost of transporting food from rural to urban areas is too high, worsened by high fuel prices, and extortion by state and non-state actors.

Therefore, the government must eliminate nuisance taxes and improve rural infrastructure. While Nigeria grapples with 135,000 untarred rural roads, India constructed 76 km of rural roads daily in 2023.

Nigeria has neglected its agricultural sector. The sector receives less than 20 per cent of the federal budget, reflecting misplaced priorities. This translates to a lack of ample investment in the sector and contributes to hunger and malnutrition. The buoyancy of terrorism and insecurity in the food basket regions compounds the situation.

Nigeria should establish and entrench state police to secure farmers and law-abiding citizens while exploiting the potential of the arable lands within the states. Governors should collaborate to boost a robust agriculture ecosystem of fishery, poultry, livestock, and crops. The police should do more with intelligence and execution.


Nigeria must learn from countries in Europe and America, where food security is considered a critical part of state policy. These countries prioritise food security by subsidising production and storing surplus during harvest. The Netherlands generates $8 billion annually from food exports. Nigeria, with an arable land of 34 million hectares, should focus on feeding its people and exporting surplus food.

madridguy:
President Tinubu should ban open grazing and declare Fulani herdsmen a terrorist group. People cannot be investing their lives savings in agricultural business and only for a bastards to come with his cows to scattered everything and still kill people.

madridguy:
President Tinubu should ban open grazing and declare Fulani herdsmen a terrorist group. People cannot be investing their lives savings in agricultural business and only for a bastards to come with his cows to scattered everything and still kill people.

Nnamdipapa:
1. We need forced abortion!

The poor should be forced to a policy of one child per couple. We don't have enough resources to feed our population. We are headed for trouble.

2. We need to arm our farmers or provide them with special protection.

3. Each of us needs to farm as subsistence as possible. We have a population of fvucking 200 million people, fertile lands, and rain in due season. Do not tell me there is hunger in the country. I will not listen to you.