Nigeria Needs Concerted Efforts To Address Food Insecurity -VP Shettima

The Nigerian Vice President Kashim Shettima, says all tiers of government needs to work together to turn the tide against hunger in Nigeria.

He was speaking at the inauguration of the House Committee on Nutrition and Food Security, in Abuja.

The vice president who was represented by the Special Assistant to the President on Public Health Focal person on Nutrition Office of the Vice President, Mrs Uju Rochas Anwukah, said that the initiative of the House to address food shortages demonstrates a clear understanding and the urgency and complexity before Nigeria.

 

 

” As we gather here today to address the multi faceted issue of food security and the looming nutritional dangers facing our nation, let us remember that we are all threats in this intricate tapestry of transformation. Each of us play a unique role, from policy makers to farmers, from civil society to private sector partners, to move the policies into actions.

“The renewed hope administration under the visionary leadership of President Bola Tinubu is determined to tackle this food shortage and nutritional challenges that we face today. This challenge not only can be changed but will be changed for the interest and progress of our country” Mrs Anwukah said.

The SA also hinted that the the government has already began working on key interventions.

” As a government and as a people, it is not time for accusations, it is not time to cast blames, it is definitely not time for politics. It is the time to exchange ideas. It is the time for commitments. It is the time to take responsibility. It is a time for patriotism. Let us, Ladies and gentlemen, more than ever, work together to turn the tide against hunger and malnutrition. Let us sew the seed of change and reap the harvest of wellbeing, prosperity and resilience for all Nigerians”. She said.

While inaugurating the committee, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Tajuddeen Abbas, raised the alarm that no fewer than 35 million children under the age of five years are currently impacted by malnutrition.

He said that among the 35 million, 12 million are already stunted; three million are wasted while 23.5 million suffer from anemia.

According to him, an additional 17.7 million individuals are facing hunger, with 2.6 million children confronting severe acute malnutrition in 2024 adding that among women of childbearing age, 7% experience severe acute malnutrition.

“These figures may exacerbate due to the current food inflation rate, which stands at about 33.7% (according to the Central Bank of Nigeria).

“This Committee is very crucial to the vision of the House to ‘be responsive, results-oriented and effective in performing its constitutional mandate towards the security and welfare of Nigerians.

“Nigeria, like the rest of the world, is experiencing a food crisis, exacerbated by climate change, rising inflation and pervasive insecurity. Hence, the decision of the House to set up a Committee that would be dedicated to fashioning legislative measures actions to tackle the menace of food insecurity and malnutrition affecting our people.

“According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) about 26.5 million Nigerians would be grappling with high levels of food insecurity in 2024, while the country is said to have the second highest burden of malnutrition in the world, with 32% children under the age of five stunted or chronically malnourished”, Hon Abbas said.

The Speaker revealed that the World Food Programme’s September 2023 publication of the ‘Nigeria Hunger Map’ estimates that 24.9 million Nigerians are in an acute or critical stage of hunger, categorized as an emergency, while 85.8 million Nigerians have insufficient food consumption.

Among this population, he continued, 47.7 million Nigerians resort to crisis-level or above-crisis-level food-based coping strategies.

“The above data paints a very gloomy picture requiring urgent legislative action. This is particularly so given that some of the causative factors are issues within the legislative competence of the House to deal with.

The food and nutrition crisis affecting us as a nation is partly caused by global warming and climate change, pervasive insecurity across the country which prevents farmers and herders from engaging in their various agricultural activities, poor irrigation, outdated land tenure system, crude and traditional farm practices on subsistence levels as well as a myriad of other challenges”, he added.

Similarly, the Minister of Budget and Economic Planning, Mr. Atiku Bagudu, restated the government’s commitment to puting measures in place to ensure adequate nutrition and food security for Nigerians.

He said that Nigeria has done very well and supported by different stakeholders.

“We have the National Food Security Council Chaired by no less a person than the Vice President, Kashim Shettima. We are participants in the United Nations Food System Transformation as well as the institutional alignment through the Ministry of Agriculture being recognised as the Ministry of Agriculture and that of Food Security.

“This is commendable. We recall that in the last administration under former President Muhammadu Buhari, a national security council was created chaired by the President himself and I was privileged to be the Vice Chair of that council.

“What led to it is the recognition that food security is not an agriculture issue, not a health issue, not an environment issue, not a physical security issue. It is all of it. So we need to have stakeholders around the table so we can appreciate, we can do better. The same thing with nutrition.

“The House of Representatives is helping in addressing the challenges. Mr President has recognized these issues and is committed to addressing them.” Mr Bagudu said.

On his part, the chairman of the House Committee on Nutrition and Food Security, Hon Chike Okafor, applauded the House leadership for setting up the specialized Committee which focuses on food security and nutrition.

“This is the first time in the history of the Legislature in Nigeria that the leadership of the House thought it necessary to set up a distinct and exclusive Committee for greater legislative attention to critical interventions in the cross-cutting issues of food and nutrition. The creation of this Committee would serve as a swift response to the present economic realities, especially the current unaffordability of basic foods in Nigeria arising from uncontrolled inflation and scarce means”. Hon Okafor said.

He also said that the House would soon convey Food security Summit as part of deliberate measure to address food challenges in Nigeria.

Stakeholders at the meeting commended the House for setting up the food and nutrition committee saying that it would bring legislative backing to food security in Nigeria.