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1.3 million Nigerians are at risk of starving in August
Good morning, Big Brains. This week has been super long for me. I’ve been looking forward to the weekend and I’m glad it’s finally here.
- Margaret
Word count: ~ 1000
Reading time ~ 5 mins
Let’s get into today’s edition:
1.3 million Nigerians are at risk of starving in August
#EndSARS protesters are finally getting some form of justice
The Big Deal
1.3 million Nigerians are at risk of starving in August
One of the first things you subconsciously learn as a Nigerian is to swear that every new year is your year. Unfortunately for millions of people who started the year with that positive energy, Nigeria itself is making it hard for 2025 to be anyone’s year — especially some people who live in the northeast and depend on food aid to stay alive.
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) announced on Wednesday, July 23, that it might suspend all emergency food and nutrition support for 1.3 million people in the region by the end of July because of an insane aid shortage.
According to WFP’s Regional Director for West and Central Africa, Margot van der Velden, the agency is currently going through it financially and urgently needs $130 million to keep feeding vulnerable communities over the next six months.
WFP says it has already exhausted its food and nutrition stockpiles, and by early August, its teams may have no choice but to tell desperate families that they can no longer meet their nutritional needs. Not because the need isn’t there, but because the resources simply aren’t available anymore.
When this finally happens, over 1.3 million people, including 300,000 infants, could lose access to the food and nutritional support keeping them alive.
Why is this a big deal?
As bad as all these sound, it’s not just Yobe that’s in trouble. Over 31 million Nigerians are currently facing severe food insecurity. To put that into perspective, that’s more than double the entire population of Rwanda. As a result, 18% of Nigerians are malnourished, 31.5% of Nigerian children are experiencing stunted growth, and 10.7% of these children die before age five.
The worst part is that no organisation has enough aid to save 31 million Nigerians. When the WFP emergency aid ends, some people will starve, and others may take desperate measures to survive. Over 150 nutrition clinics supported by WFP are also on their last line right now, putting over 300,000 children at risk of losing life-saving treatment.
And if this year has taught us anything, we can’t completely trust the Nigerian government to close that funding gap. On Tuesday, January 28, Trump decided to cut the funds in countries where the US Agency for International Development (USAID) functions, including Nigeria. That funding cut has affected everything from HIV treatments to contraception accessibility.
As of 2022, 80% of the money Nigeria spent on HIV treatments came from foreign aid. Even though experts say Nigeria needs approximately $8 billion (about ₦10.4 trillion) annually to sustain the fight against HIV/AIDS, the federal government was only able to release ₦4.8 billion to close the funding gap.
We don’t know what the future holds for Yobe, but we certainly hope for the best.
#EndSARS protesters are finally getting some form of justice
October 10, 2020, isn’t just any random date; it’s the day that changed everything for Nigerian youths. And every year since, brave Nigerians have taken to the streets to honour the lives lost at the Lekki Toll Gate. But things didn’t go well on October 20, 2024, when peaceful protesters marking the fourth #EndSARS memorial were once again met with the same injustice they were speaking against. This time, though, the court seems to be finally on the right side of history.
On Thursday, July 24, the Federal High Court in Lagos ordered the Inspector-General of Police and the Lagos State Commissioner of Police to pay ₦10 million in damages to the protesters for violating their fundamental human rights.
Justice Musa Kakaki, who delivered the ruling, made it clear that the protesters were unjustly harassed and their rights were abused during the memorial rally. He clarified that democracy should never be used as a weapon against citizens exercising their right to protest.
The applicants in the case included Hassan Taiwo Soweto, Uadiale Kingsley, Ilesanmi Kehinde, Osopale Adeseye, Olamilekan Sanusi, and Miss Osugba Blessing, with support from groups like the Education Rights Campaign (ERC), Take It Back Movement (TIBM), and the Campaign for the Defence of Human Rights (CDHR).
It’s a rare win in the long fight for justice, which is especially surprising because this is the same Nigeria where Justice Obiora Egwuatu, who was in charge of a case against underage #EndBadGovernance protesters, attached a ₦10 million bail to their freedom. For context, some of these kids were as young as 14.
We hope to see more rulings like Justice Kakaki’s in the future.
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