Malnutrition soars amid Nigeria food cost spike, Aid group says

Malnutrition is surging in Nigeria as the country grapples with a cost-of-living crisis, according to the nonprofit Doctors Without Borders.

Admissions for the condition at the group’s treatment facilities in the northeast state of Bauchi jumped 120% in the first half of the year, compared with the same period in 2023, it said in a statement on Tuesday. Countrywide, admission rates increased by an average of 40%.

“We are very alarmed by the catastrophic increase in malnutrition admissions we have seen in Bauchi in the first half,” said Rabi Adamou, the group’s project coordinator in the region. “We are only just entering the peak season for malnutrition and our facilities are over capacity and having to expand.”

The cost of food and other essentials has spiked in Nigeria since President Bola Tinubu allowed the naira to float more freely last year and curbed subsidies on fuel and electricity. Food inflation has been compounded by insecurity in northern Nigeria, the main bread basket, where insurgents have displaced tens of thousands of farmers.

The decline in living standards has triggered demonstrations that have been met with a clampdown by law-enforcement agencies. At least 21 people have died and 175 have been injured in protest-related violence, according to Trade and Investment Minister Doris Uzoka-Anite.
Doctors Without Border said almost 6,000 malnourished children were admitted to its inpatient therapeutic feeding centre in Bauchi’s Ganjuwa area in the first half, while more than 17,000 people were admitted to three other feeding centres in the state.