Over 12 million Nigerians are experiencing hunger due to insecurity and lingering economic impact of COVID-19, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has said.
FAO communications officer, David Tsokar, who disclosed this in a statement on Friday, said the FAO arrived at the conclusion based on an analysis known as the Cadre Harmonise, conducted in 20 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in October.
Tsokar said about 19 percent of affected households are in areas plagued by Boko Haram insurgency, such as Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states.
“The provisional result of the report showed that the number of people in critical or worse phases of food insecurity might increase to about 16.9 million,” he said, adding that unless measures, including humanitarian aid, are put in place.
Tsokar said an estimated 2 million people in the emergence phase, even with humanitarian aid, are facing extreme food deficits, resulting in very high acute malnutrition or excessive mortality.
He said the number is projected to increase to 3.5 million at the peak of the 2022 lean season between June and August, adding that the number of people anticipated to be in the emergency phase could double to 4.6 million.
“Another 13.6 million people were anticipated to experience catastrophe-like conditions in some of the most inaccessible localities,” he said.
