From being the word’s poverty capital, Nigeria has scored another low as the capital of malnourished children on the African continent and the second highest in the world, displacing a war-ravaged Sudan which had held the ignoble trophy for several years.
This is according to the United Nations Children’s Fund which released the damning report on Monday.
The UNICEF chief nutrition section, Nemat Hajeebhoy, who disclosed this during a media briefing on the 2025 lean season multisectoral response organised by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, OCHA, said 600,000 children in Nigeria suffered from acute malnutrition, with half of these children on the brink of developing severe acute malnutrition, making them vulnerable to death.
Ms. Hajeebhoy said, “Nigeria has the highest number of malnourished children in Africa and the second in the world”.
Similarly, Nigeria had the most food-insecure people in Africa, according to Serigne Loum, a World Food Programme official.
This damning disclosure came amid OCHA’s appeal for funding to tackle the recurrent food and nutrition crisis in the North-East states.
Trond Jensen, OCHA’s head of office, said the UN agency required a combined $300 million to adequately address the crisis, noting that $159.3 million of the fund was necessary to tackle crises related to food insecurity, nutrition, water, and sanitation.
Mr. Jensen said, “This is the absolute bare minimum that we are needing. Of course, it’s a paradox and a dilemma that we are facing that whereas the need when it comes to severe acute malnutrition has doubled in the year; our ability to address those needs in some instances has halved.”
Mr. Jensen, while appealing to state governments and international organisations to contribute to the response, said the agency was targeting two million people as far as the crises were concerned.
Last year, the Global Hunger Index listed Sudan as the country most hit by poverty, followed by Burundi, Somalia and Yemen.
Meanwhile, the World Bank’s Africa’s Pulse report of April 2025 showed that Nigeria accounts for 19 per cent of extremely poor people in Sub-Saharan Africa, while the Democratic Republic of Congo has 14 per cent, Ethiopia nine per cent, and Sudan six per cent.
The World Bank also predicted a grim future for Nigeria, stating that more Nigerians will be plunged into poverty by 2027. (With report by PG)