Nigeria, the number of malnourished children is growing at an alarming rate, there is a record number of hospitalizations in Borno State

ROME – About 6 of the 17 million food insecure Nigerians today are children under the age of 5, living in the states of Borno, Adamawa, Yobe, Sokoto, Katsina and Zamfara. There is a serious risk of mortality among children attributed to acute malnutrition. Meanwhile, an unprecedented number of malnourished children in need of life-saving treatment have been admitted to therapeutic feeding centers run by Doctors Without Borders (MSF) in Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state. The problem of food shortages in some regions of Nigeria is exacerbated at this time of year as reserves of the previous year’s crop begin to run out and malnutrition levels peak. This time however – warns MSF – Borno is on the verge of a catastrophe.

Hunger numbers. Every week in January, 75 children were held in the Nilefa Kiji therapeutic feeding center in Maiduguri for severe malnutrition, more than three times the average for the same period over the past five years. In early April, the weekly hospitalization figure reached 150, double the figure for the same period in 2022. Last year, MSF sounded the same alarm, but with lower numbers, in June, when hospitalizations skyrocketed. This year, however, the crisis arrived earlier, even if there are still several weeks before food supplies run out.

The intervention of Doctors Without Borders. From the beginning of January to 20 April 2023, 1,283 malnourished children were admitted for intensive hospital care at the organization’s feeding centre: 120 percent more than in the same period last year. In addition to the nutrition emergency in Maiduguri, MSF teams are also responding to large-scale health crises in northwestern Nigeria, where the organization treated 147,860 children suffering from severe acute malnutrition in 2022.

Living as a displaced person. Malnutrition is nothing new in Maiduguri, where years of conflict between the Nigerian army and armed groups have generated a serious humanitarian crisis. Many people have had to leave their homes and still live today in precarious conditions, in reception communities or in improvised camps for displaced persons. The informal camps are born on small plots of land, are overcrowded, with no infrastructure, and people sleep in huts made of plastic sheeting, torn clothes or fabrics. The official camps, on the other hand, were closed at the end of 2021 and as a result there was also a drastic cut in humanitarian aid, including food. The vulnerability of people has increased again this year, also due to the redefinition of the Nigerian currency, the Naira, which has led to a shortage of liquidity.

Monetary policy. On 26 October 2022, the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, announced that the higher denominations of the Naira would be redesigned and set a deadline of 31 January 2023 to deposit all old banknotes in the bank. According to the central bank, the new money cuts should help curb corruption and fraud, address the growing threat of kidnapping for ransom, lower inflation and curb the problem of having too much money in circulation, which in turn is cause for evasion. Cash politics in the Nigerian context refers to the widespread practice among political parties of getting voters to vote by offering money or other goods such as food and clothing right before the election. A strategy that has always been successful due to the country’s level of poverty.

The poverty rate in Nigeria. In 2023, 12 percent of the world’s population living in extreme poverty, or on $1.90 a day, is in Nigeria. 45 percent of the country’s population lives in these conditions, while unemployment has reached 37 percent, according to statistics from the Nigerian Economic Summit Group. Overall, the number of people living in extreme poverty in Africa is estimated to reach 422 million in 2025.