Rosemary Iwuala
As Nigeria continue to spool in abject poverty and hardship, the Cadre Harmonise report on indicated that no fewer than 28.4 million Nigerians in 26 states and the Federal Capital Territory, including 18,000 Internally Displaced Persons, are projected to face severe crises between June and August this year due to the protracted fuel scarcity, worsen insecurity and naira.
In March 2023 Cadre Harmonise analysis, which covered 26 states, and released in Abuja on recently, also stated that about 17.7 million people including 14,000 IDPs in 26 states and the FCT were in crisis or worse through May 2023.
The partners of the Food Security Sector (FSS) use CH as a tool to calculate and ascertain the situation surrounding food security and nutrition in a particular area over a period of time.
Cadre Harmonise is a tool adopted by partners in the Food Security Sector (FSS), which is usually developed on request by the government of a particular country to serve as an early warning tool to prevent and manage food and nutrition crises.
However, the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in Nigeria, leads the process through the National Programme for Food Security (NPFS), working closely with other Government Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).
The CH report is produced with technical and financial support from global, regional and national partners including the Food and Agricultural Organisation, Permanent Interstate Committee for Drought Control in the Sahel, CILSS, WFP, Save the Children International, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, Famine Early Warning Systems Network, UNICEF, Mercy Corps, among others.
The CH report stated that the naira redesign was one of the key drivers of the crisis in Nigeria, adding that the withdrawal of the old naira notes from circulation created a serious bottleneck to households’ ability to access cash and food commodities.
The report also pointed out that insecurity, especially insurgency in the North-East states, particularly in Borno, Adamawa and Yobe, was still persistent; armed banditry and kidnapping for ransom in some North-West states such as Katsina, Sokoto and Kaduna, as well as North-Central states of Benue and Niger, which have also lingered.”
“The prolonged scarcity of Petroleum Motor Spirit, commonly called petrol, and the associated hike in the pump price of the commodity across the states, led to an astronomical rise in transport fares and cost of food products in Nigerian markets.
“The consistent rising price of food commodities and agricultural inputs across Nigerian markets is one of the drivers of food insecurity. The general consumer price index shows an increase from 15.7 per cent in February 2022 to 21.9 per cent in February 2023 (that is 39.49 per cent point increase) year-on-year,” the report stated.
It noted that food consumption levels had remained inadequate and below the desired threshold across most of the states.
The report further stated that in some Local Government Areas in Adamawa, Borno and Yobe, food consumption was so critical that most of the LGAs fell under the crisis phase.
“During the current analysis period, most of the households in the analysed areas adopted crisis to worse level livelihood coping measures. The implication is that most households had irreversibly disposed of their livelihood assets to meet their food and non-food needs.
“This is most common in the insurgency affected states of Adamawa, Borno and Yobe, where the number of affected LGAs stand at 4,13, and 10 respectively.
“The nutrition situation deduced from the IPC acute malnutrition projection for January to April 2023, covering Adamawa, Borno and Yobe (North-East), and Katsina, Sokoto and Zamfara (North-West), shows prevalence of crisis to worse nutrition situation across the states,” the report stated.
The March 2023 cycle of the Cadre Harmonise analysis covered 26 states, including Abia, Adamawa, Bauchi, Benue, Borno, Cross River, Edo, Enugu, Gombe, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, and Katsina.
Others include Kebbi, Kogi, Kwara, Lagos, Nasarawa, Niger, Ogun Plateau, Rivers, Sokoto, Taraba, Yobe, and Zamfara, as well as the Federal Capital Territory.
The report recommended that the government and humanitarian community should sustain the implementation of life-saving interventions of food assistance and unconditional cash transfers (social welfare package) to vulnerable populations in the affected areas.
