Characterization of food insecurity among the forced migrants in northern Nigeria

Abstract

Food insecurity affects many people worldwide. More than one billion people in Sub-Saharan Africa are food insecure. About 35% of this population, representing 346 million, are food insecure because of conflicts and political unrest. About 1.6 million people forced to migrate from northern to Central Nigeria in 2018 alone are food insecure. Food insecurity reduces people’s choice, power, and opportunity to access and control their food practices. Forced migrants have difficult circumstances, including physical restrictions on food access, and cultural and financial means during the migration. However, there is little knowledge of how the forced migrants engaged and managed their food practices throughout their migration period, making the form of food insecurity they experienced poorly understood. This calls for an investigation to increase food security for forced migrants. This article draws on the investigation from an in-depth Narrative interview involving 25 people who had experienced forced migration in northern Nigeria to address this gap. Unstructured interviews were, used for data collection to allow a wide range of responses. Their responses were audio recorded and subsequently transcribed and written in English. The contextual data that resulted from transcriptions of the audio data were subjected to computer-assisted qualitative data analysis software (CAQDAS) and the data was analyzed. The study's objectives are to find out the forms of food security/insecurity experienced by the forced migrants, their experiences, and the nature of the migration. The finding revealed that violent conflicts caused by terrorists, Fulani herders, religious bigots, and communal disagreement caused forced migration in the region and resulted in short-term, intermittent, and long-term food insecurity. Short-term food insecurity was more devastating for the migrants than intermittent and long-term food insecurity.