The United Nations (UN) has described a looming hunger crisis in northern Nigeria as "unprecedented," with analysts estimating that at least 5 million children are already suffering from acute malnutrition. This is despite northern Nigeria traditionally being the nation's agricultural heartland, producing maize, millet, and sorghum. 

In northeastern Nigeria alone, which includes Borno State, over one million people are believed to be facing hunger. Margot van der Velden, Western Africa Regional Director for the World Food Programme (WFP), said nearly 31 million Nigerians face acute food insecurity and need life-saving food, just as funds for West and Central Africa are shrinking.

Dwindling aid funds

Many aid programs in West Africa face closure following the Trump administration's dismantling of USAID. The WFP warned its emergency food aid program would stop by July 31 due to "critical funding shortfalls" and that its food and nutrition stocks "have been completely exhausted." By late July, the WFP's appeal for over $130 million (€113 million) to sustain operations in Nigeria for 2025 was only 21% funded.

"It is a matter of emergency for the government to see what it can do urgently to provide relief so that there is no outbreak of conflict which will be counter-productive to the progress made in the past," Dauda Muhammad, a humanitarian coordinator in northeastern Nigeria, told DW.

Dauda adds that reduced funding, along with few job opportunities and soaring prices, would bring about food insecurity that could undo years of work that tried to diminish the influence of armed jihadist groups, such as Boko Haram, in northern Nigeria.  

However, Samuel Malik, a senior researcher at Good Governance Africa, a pan-African think-tank, told DW that the root cause of the problem lies elsewhere. "The hunger crisis currently crippling northern Nigeria is fundamentally a consequence of poor governance and protracted insecurity, rather than the result of aid cuts."

He says that although "plays a vital role in alleviating the most severe manifestations of Nigeria's food insecurity, it was never designed to be comprehensive or a long time."

Villagers have been forced to flee unsafe rural areas to places like the Ramin Kura displacement camp in Sokoto, northwestern Nigeria. 40-year-old Umaimah Abubakar from Ranganda village told DW she moved there after bandits killed her husband and rustled all her in-laws' animals.  

"Whenever we heard they were approaching, we would run and hide," she said, adding that the community has tried to protect itself by recruiting vigilantes. "Everyone is suffering because there's no food. We couldn't farm this year. Sometimes, when we manage to plant, the bandits attack before the harvest. Other times, after you've harvested and stored your crops, they come and burn everything."

She says she earns a little money by washing plates to buy food for her children.

"Those who didn't farm will surely go hungry. No farming means no food, especially for villagers like us," Abubakar told DW, "Many now resort to begging or doing odd jobs. We used to plant millet, guinea corn, maize, and sesame."

Sowing seeds of fear on the frontline

Gurnowa, located in Borno State, which borders the Lake Chad region of Cameroon, Niger and Chad has been hit by a massive exodus. Situated 5 km (3 miles) from the military fortified town of Monguno, Gurnowa has been deserted for years following jihadist attacks. Residents have sought shelter in sprawling, makeshift camps under military protection in Monguno, 140 km north of the regional capital Maiduguri. The camps accommodate tens of thousands of internally displaced people, who fled their homes to escape the violence, which, according to the UN, has already killed over 40,000 people and displaced more than two million from their homes in the last 16 years.

"What is driving the crisis more persistently is the Nigerian state's failure to provide security and deliver basic governance to its rural populations," analyst Samuel Malik tells DW. "In the absence of safety, displaced persons are unable or unwilling to return to their farmlands, thus cutting off from their primary means of livelihood. And in this context, hunger is not simply the byproduct of war, but also of systemic neglect."

But Gurnowa is just one instance. While Boko Haram militants threaten the northeast, banditry and farmer-herder clashes plague the northwest and north-central regions of Africa's most populous nation. Rural economies are producing less, with crop farmers unable to carry out their livelihoods, and remain unable to feed Nigeria or communities in neighboring Niger. In addition to less food, the price of staples has shot up, creating more financial stress. 

Plea for farmers to return to their fields

Borno State Governor Babagana Umara Zulum recently renewed calls for the displaced to return to their farms in time for the rainy season to grow food.

Local governments say internally displaced peoples' camps are no longer sustainable, but aid agencies still worry about the risk of jihadist violence. "We are in a difficult situation, especially with hunger and lack of food," a displaced person from Borno State told DW. "Some of us refugees claim they are better off by joining the Boko Haram terrorist group," he added.

DW found more instances of young men in Borno State saying they remained jobless and hungry, despite government promises to reward them for leaving jihadist groups. Local governments, however, are wary of appearing to support ex-jihadists over the victims of their violence.  

Back at Sokoto's Ramin Kura displacement camp, 19-year-old Sha'afa Usman told DW what happened when her community tried to plant. 

"We tried to plant on our farms, but people would get kidnapped while working. Now, the only way to go to the farm is with security escorts or vigilantes," the mother-of-three said, adding that her husband was kidnapped from Turba village and is still in captivity.

According to Malik, farming still occurs in jihadist-controlled areas, with rural Nigerians being charged to access their fields. Violent consequences await those who cannot pay. 

"Agricultural activities have become restructured under coercive arrangements dictated by non-state actors," Malik says, adding that survival often depends on entering into exploitative arrangements with armed groups. 

"In many cases the bandits demand farming and protection levies, while also compelling the people to serve as forced labor on farmlands that were either seized from the villagers or carved out of previously uncultivated forest."

Jihadist groups can create some subsistence farming to sustain themselves, which is bolstered through raiding and income generated through ransoms and other illegal streams.    

"Anyone who goes to the farm risks being kidnapped. Most villagers no longer go because they can't afford ransom," Sha'afa Usman told DW. 

Jamiu Abiodun and Nasiru Salisu Zango contributed to this article

Edited by: Chrispin Mwakideu