Lagos State has the highest number of food-insecure people among the 21 states and the Federal Capital Territory so far analysed by the Federal Government in partnership with the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, World Food Programme, Action Against Hunger, among others.

In the Food Security analysis report, otherwise called the Cadre Harmonise, put together by the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development in collaboration with relevant stakeholders and released in Abuja on Friday, it was stated that a total of 1,780,194 people were food insecure in Lagos.

Borno, Katsina and Sokoto had 1,429,988; 1,200,906; and 1,027,646 food insecure people in their domains, as they joined in the top four ranking states with food-insecure citizens in Nigeria.

The 21 states in March to May 2022 cycle of Cadre Harmonise include Abia, Adamawa, Bauchi, Benue, Borno, Cross-River, Edo, Enugu, Gombe, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano and Katsina.

Others include Kebbi, Lagos, Niger, Plateau, Sokoto, Taraba, Yobe, Zamfara, and the FCT.

This, it said, include 979,687 in emergency across Borno, Adamawa, Katsina, Niger, Sokoto, Yobe and Zamfara.

The report said the situation might persist unless conscious and intensive efforts were made to sustain humanitarian support and other government intervention schemes targeted at the households for recovery and resilience in their livelihoods.

“This projected marginal increase in the population of people who may require the immediate need of humanitarian assistance could be related to the insecurity wave in the North-East states (Borno, Adamawa and Yobe) and activities of bandits in some North-West and North-Central states (Zamfara, Sokoto, Katsina, Kaduna, Benue and Niger),” the report stated.

The Food Security Analyst, FAO, Jasper Mwesigwa, told journalists on the sidelines of the event that the report was put together in order to reveal the number of people who needed assistance.

He said, “This is a framework for estimating the number of people who are food insecure and may need assistance. It’s done nationally, but for this round, we have done it in 21 states plus the FCT.”

(The PUNCH)

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