ICC Note: The United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) reports malnutrition as a serious crisis in Nigeria, slowly killing children across the country from birth to age five. While the problem is indiscriminate and widespread, the conflicts that arise from Christian persecution and the subsequent displacement of people serves as a huge contributor to the problem. Radical Islamist terror groups Boko Haram in the northeast and Fulani militants across the Middle-Belt central region continue to devastate primarily Christian communities, causing a displacement crisis of more than 1.3 million people, which leads to starvation and malnutrition. Additionally, Nigeria represents the second-worst country in the world in terms of infant and maternal death from child ages birth to five.

By Olayemi John-Mensah

The United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) has raised alarm that malnutrition is slowly killing Nigerian children from ages 0 to 5 years out of the 1.6 million children across the country.

In a media dialogue workshop on child malnutrition organised by UNICEF and the Child’s Right Information Bureau (CRIP) in Kano, UNICEF revealed that over 1.6 million Nigerian children, approximately 30%-47% are suffering from the scourge of malnutrition and that if nothing was done to checkmate the menace, children in the country in the next 20 years would lack the ability to compete favourably with their foreign counterparts on the intellectual scene.

The Federal Ministry of Health defines malnutrition as a pathological condition brought about by the inadequacy of one or more of the nutrients essential for survival, growth, development, reproduction and capacity to learn and function in the society. It is against this background that the ministry revealed that ignorance plays a major role in increased malnutrition in the country.

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