34 Million Nigerians at Risk of Starvation as Donor Nations Slash Aid, Triggering Malnutrition Surge, esp. in The North

 

The food crisis looming over Nigeria has taken a grim turn, with over 34 million people now projected to face severe hunger between June and August 2025. A new United Nations report has laid bare the devastating effects of international funding cuts on the country’s most vulnerable populations.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), roughly 1.4 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) in northeastern Nigeria, including Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states, are on the brink of starvation. The situation has been compounded by a full withdrawal of support from the World Food Programme (WFP) after months of scaled-back assistance.

Humanitarian workers say warehouses are now empty and support centres overwhelmed. Trust Mlambo, the WFP’s lead operations officer in the region, confirmed to the BBC that the latest aid cycle may be the last. “We don’t have any more to give,” he warned, calling for urgent donations to avoid a complete collapse of relief operations.

Projections from the Cadre Harmonisé Food and Nutrition Insecurity Analysis estimate that 33.1 million Nigerians are already food-insecure. With the 1.4 million IDPs now added to the tally, the number climbs to 34.7 million people facing hunger in the coming months.

Economic turmoil has played a significant role in the escalating crisis. Soaring inflation, which hit 40.9 percent in June 2024, currency devaluation, and persistent violence in the northeast have all conspired to make food unaffordable or inaccessible for many.

At an aid centre in Gwoza, displaced mother Aisha Abubakar told the BBC she used the $20 credited to her humanitarian debit card to buy a sack of maize, but the food would not last her family more than a couple of weeks. For hundreds of thousands like her, the uncertainty is suffocating.

Conflict continues to prevent families from farming, a fact that worsens their dependency on external assistance. Twenty-five-year-old Hauwa Badamasi, who has two children, said she hasn’t visited her family’s farm in years due to the threat of attacks. Her first child, Amina, is now battling malnutrition.

Aid workers and observers are raising concerns about the long-term security implications of the crisis. Hunger and displacement, they argue, could push desperate youths into the ranks of extremist groups like Boko Haram. "When people have no food or hope, it becomes easier for them to be recruited," said Mlambo.

Figures from Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) show a startling rise in severe acute malnutrition. By mid-2025, the organisation reported that it had already lost 652 children to preventable causes. In 2024, MSF treated more than 357,000 malnourished children across northern Nigeria, a 35 percent increase from the previous year.

MSF’s international president, Christos Christou, said the crisis had intensified faster than expected, beginning in March instead of July and continuing through November. The number of severe malnutrition cases doubled in the Borno-Yobe-Adamawa region, with projections warning of even more extreme conditions in 2025.

Trond Jensen, head of UN-OCHA in Nigeria, highlighted that the scale-down of international donor support has drastically weakened humanitarian operations. The US, which previously provided 60 percent of aid funding, has significantly reduced its contributions. The UK, Netherlands and Germany have also slashed support by as much as half.

At the policy level, the Borno State Government has claimed to be proactively addressing the crisis. Commissioner for Information and Internal Security, Professor Usman Tar, said the administration had adopted a long-term strategy to improve resilience and reduce dependency. Initiatives under the Borno State Development Plan and a 10-year transformation programme are being accelerated, he added.

Not everyone agrees with the outrage over the aid withdrawal. Security analyst Abdullahi Garba views the development as an opportunity for self-reliance. He claimed that continuous aid dependence has weakened the initiative of many IDPs, arguing that the current hardship might spur communities to rethink their survival strategies.

“The insurgency has persisted despite years of aid. Now people will have to start looking inward,” Garba said. While acknowledging the threat of extremist recruitment, he insisted that insurgents too may be starved of funds if humanitarian channels dry up completely.

The federal government has also made statements about combating malnutrition. Vice President Kashim Shettima recently said that malnutrition had robbed four in ten Nigerian children of their physical and cognitive potential. A national nutrition board has been launched, described as a "war room" to tackle the crisis, but critics question whether the response can meet the urgency of the moment.

UNICEF had earlier revealed that 5.4 million children under five in the North West and North East suffer from acute malnutrition, with another one million projected to join their ranks by April 2025 if the current trend continues.

As funding vanishes and needs grow, the question remains: how will Nigeria, now largely on its own, prevent an avoidable humanitarian catastrophe?