The federal government has called for the support of local and international partners and donors to fight the nation’s humanitarian crisis, which has been exacerbated by the United Nations World Food Programme’s (WFP) funding shortfall.
The minister of state for Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Reduction, Dr. Yusuf Tanko Sununu, made the disclosure yesterday at a media briefing on a sustainable response to address the humanitarian gap arising from the partial suspension of WFP operations in Northeast and Northwest Nigeria.
“We urge both the local and international partners to provide urgent support to complement the efforts of governments in Nigeria to prevent humanitarian catastrophe,” he stated yesterday in Abuja.
The World Food Programme (WFP) currently delivers life-saving food assistance to 1.3 million vulnerable individuals, including internally displaced persons (IDPs), returnees, refugees, children, and pregnant and lactating women.
However, due to severe funding gaps, WFP has been forced to scale back its coverage, reaching only 900,000 people in August and 725,000 in September 2025, thereby leaving 575,000 individuals (approximately 115,000 households) without critical support.
According to Dr. Sununu, the Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved the establishment of a National Council on Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Reduction to guide the scope and operations of humanitarian activities, headed by the Federal Ministry of Humanitariqn Affairs and Poverty Reduction.
“This will give us a way to develop programme that is not federal programme, but a national programme and it’s right from exceptional implementations and oversight so that we can have a document that will guide us on our own. Also, some of the local businesses to see how we increase budgetary allocation to the ministry,” the minister stated at his office.
The aim is to ensure a coordination between the ministry, the state and local governments. He said the move is part of efforts of the federal government to make the right impact and deliver on its mandate.
Meanwhile, the Humanitarian Minister announced that the government has concluded plans to disburse N300,000 each to 21,000 farmers ahead of 2025 dry season farming as part of efforts to curtail the drivers of poverty, food insecurity and humanitarian crisis in Nigeria. The initiative is part of the administration’s empowerment programmes.
“That we are going to disburse to 21,000 farmers and each will receive at least nothing less than N300,000 to support,” Sununu stated. It’s a soft loan that is non-collateral and interest-free that is targeting the dry season farming to complement a lot of losses that may be encountered as a result of flooding and many other issues.
The minister also dismissed the long-standing allegation of official negligence and insensitivity to the extent to which the ministry allowed a large quantity of food items to rot away in its warehouses while vulnerable Nigerians, especially internally displaced ones, were left without food and other household items. Instead, he said the ministry had disbursed all the food items in its possession.
Nigeria is faced with a serious humanitarian crisis, mainly due to terrorism, and violent and climate-induced floods across the country. According to the minister, the nation currently has over 3 million displaced persons with an unestimated number unaccounted for.
“Today, on record, we have over three million Nigerians who are internally displaced all over,” Sununu disclosed, saying that the government is doing everything to ensure their resettlement. Borno State has the highest figure, with 1,728,000 internally displaced persons currently housed in the state.
Dr. Sununu told journalists that his ministry has “employed about 53 companies that will help us in updating the NIN registration so that each of those in our National Register that doesn’t have the account number, NIN and BVN, we quickly get them.” The companies have already mobilised to site and activities ongoing already. The objective is to fast track reaching out to numerous vulnerable groups.
He said the N500 billion budgetary allocation for 2025 has helped his ministry improve on its outreach to 75 million households already this year while also intensifying on other welfare schemes across the country.
However, he acknowledged that cash transfers should not be a permanent destination for vulnerable Nigerians, adding that the government is now looking at having a sustainability plan to address the humanitarian crisis in Nigeria. “A part of our local solution is to make it a temporary destination,” he said.
WFP had warned of a severe funding shortfall, with projected resources dropping by 34 percent compared to 2024. According to the organisation, the funding gap will force WFP to reduce emergency food assistance, affecting up to 16.7 million people – a 21 percent reduction from the 79.9 million assisted in 2024. It warned that life-saving food and nutrition assistance in Central Sahel and Nigeria will halt in April 2025 without urgent funding.
The UN food agency said it urgently requires $620 million to ensure continued support to crisis-affected people across the Sahel and in Nigeria over the next six months.
The minister also called on the general public to support the providers of sustainable solutions to address the root causes of food insecurity and malnutrition and for strengthened collaboration and partnerships to support the most vulnerable populations.
The minister also disclosed that President Bola Tinubu has directed the lifting of the suspension on the ministry’s account following allegations of diversion of money from programmes intended for vulnerable groups into a private account, leading to the recovery of $24 million and the discovery of over 50 suspicious bank accounts under the former Minister Better Edu. “I’m glad to say that Mr. President has directed that that account should be open. And the account has been opened.”
He said President Tinubu is focussing on ways to redeem the image of the ministry and institute principle of accountability and transparency. “So whatever we are going to do in the ministry now must be trackable and traceable,” he stated.
Dr Sununu said the ministry has developed a local strategy based on transparency and accountability for the administration of its programmes.
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