View the January 2025 Numbers For Hunger and Food Scarcity in Nigeria

The north-east of Nigeria, constituting the (BAY states) – Borno, Adamawa and Yobe is a conflict zone. Insurgency in the region drives poverty to alarming rates, so much so that the people require humanitarian efforts to survive.

Life in the north-east is further characterised by constant fear, insecurity and extensive population displacement.

Insurgency is, however, not the only cause of the hunger situation in the northeast of Nigeria. Reports show that climate shocks and economic instability do not make situations easy, especially in the lean season, May to September.

The Food Crises in North-Eastern Nigeria in Numbers

Humanitarian challenges in Nigeria exist in certain regions for a reason. The people in the region are generally poor and their main source of livelihood is subsistence farming. Their situations are worsened by the constant disruption of agricultural fields by various agents, including floods. In 2024, 1.3 million hectares of farmland in the region were flooded in the middle of the harvest.

The result was a massive production loss.

• Around 1.1 million tonnes of maize, sorghum and rice, amounting to almost US$ $1 billion, were lost to flooding. This number could feed 13 million people for a year.

The northeast is not alone; the northwest Katsina, Zamfara and Sokoto saw similar crises that now make them vulnerable to hunger and food scarcity in 2025. In the last quarter of 2024, the post-harvest period.

• An estimated 9 million people from the northwest fell into the food insecure zone. About 3,9 million are from Sokoto, Katsina and Zamfara.

The 2025 projection by Cadre Harmonisé (CH), is not looking good either. Due to constant conflict and economic disasters, the peak of the 2025 lean season, about 5.1 million people living in the BAY states will be food insecure. This will be exacerbated by climate change.

The numbers are further distributed as;

• 32% girls
• 28% boys
• 19% women
• 15 % men
• 2% of elderly women
• 3% of elderly men

Furthermore, the lean season in Nigeria in 2025 is expected to push the number of food-insecure people up, with the north-west feeling the effect as well.

• Kaduna – 2.3 million
• Kano – 2 million
• Katsina 2.1 million