The United Nations’ World Food Programme has warned that worsening hunger in northern Nigeria is forcing some desperate residents to join bandit groups in exchange for food or income, as conflict, displacement and shrinking humanitarian assistance deepen the region’s food crisis.
The agency disclosed this on Thursday, saying communities across parts of northern Nigeria had reported incidents of individuals enlisting with armed groups as a survival strategy amid rising hunger and economic hardship.
According to the WFP, more than 17 million Nigerians are currently experiencing crisis, emergency or catastrophic levels of food insecurity, with conditions in some conflict-ridden northern states reaching their worst levels in nearly a decade.
The WFP Regional Director for West and Central Africa, Kinday Samba, said the humanitarian situation was deteriorating as violence spread beyond the North-East into the North-West, displacing farming communities and limiting access for aid workers.
“What concerns us most is how this crisis is expanding,” Samba said, noting that insecurity had forced thousands from their farmlands while restricting humanitarian operations across affected communities.
The agency explained that the number of locations inaccessible to its frontline personnel had doubled, with an additional 15 areas now classified as partially inaccessible due to insecurity.
Nigeria has battled a jihadist insurgency in the North-East since 2009, while armed bandit groups continue to terrorise communities across the North-West, compounding the humanitarian crisis.
The WFP also linked the worsening food situation to declining international donor support, particularly following aid reductions by the United States and other Western countries, which have affected humanitarian interventions in some of Nigeria’s poorest communities.
The agency noted that while the number of food-insecure people in North-Eastern Nigeria had risen to 6.2 million, funding constraints meant it could only provide food assistance to about 740,000 people, leaving approximately 5.5 million people—many of them children—without adequate support.
In Borno State, the epicentre of the insurgency, more than three million residents are reportedly facing acute food insecurity, including about 10,000 people experiencing catastrophic hunger.
The WFP said that during the peak of the 2025 lean season, it provided food and nutritional assistance to 1.3 million people. However, because of severe funding shortages, it expects to reach only slightly more than half that number this year.
The organisation expressed concern that the suspension and reduction of food assistance were pushing vulnerable households into desperate survival measures.
“Communities have reported cases of individuals joining armed groups in search of food or income, underlining the risks created when hunger deepens and people run out of options,” the agency warned.
The warning comes amid growing concerns over rising poverty and food inflation in Nigeria, with humanitarian agencies urging increased support to prevent further deterioration of the security and humanitarian situation in the country’s conflict-affected northern region.
FOLLOW US
FOR MORE HERE
