UN Passes a Vote-of-No-Confidence on Tinubu, Raises Alarm as 17 Million in Northern Nigeria Face Severe Hunger

The United Nations has raised fresh concerns over Nigeria’s worsening humanitarian crisis, warning that more than 17 million people across Northern Nigeria are facing severe hunger, with insecurity, displacement and dwindling humanitarian support pushing millions closer to starvation.

According to the United Nations World Food Programme, WFP, Northern Nigeria is experiencing one of its worst food crises in nearly a decade. A recent Cadre Harmonisé food security assessment found that more than 17 million people across conflict-affected northern states are facing crisis, emergency or catastrophic levels of food insecurity.

The UN said Borno State remains the epicentre of the crisis, where millions require urgent humanitarian assistance. It warned that worsening insecurity, attacks on farming communities, restricted humanitarian access and severe funding shortages have combined to deepen the suffering of millions.

Expressing concern over the deteriorating situation, WFP Regional Director for West and Central Africa, Kinday Samba, said:

“What concerns us most is how this crisis is expanding. For years, insurgent attacks and violence were largely concentrated in parts of North-East Nigeria. Today, they are spreading across a much wider area, and forcing people from farmlands, driving displacement and restricting humanitarian access, meaning hunger is quick to follow.”

The UN also disclosed that although 6.2 million people across Borno, Adamawa and Yobe states urgently require food assistance, available resources are sufficient to reach only a fraction of those in need, leaving millions of vulnerable Nigerians without life-saving support.

The report comes as Nigerians continue to grapple with rising food prices, persistent insecurity and worsening economic hardship. The UN noted that behind the figure of 17 million people facing severe hunger are children going to bed without food, mothers unable to feed their babies, farmers driven from their ancestral lands by violence and elderly people struggling to survive.

Warning of the consequences, Samba said:
“When people lose access to food, the risks of displacement, exploitation and instability, increase. Yet resources are at their lowest at the time they are needed most.”

The UN’s latest warning underscores the scale of the humanitarian emergency in Northern Nigeria and highlights the urgent need for increased humanitarian support and improved security to address the growing food crisis.