Umar’s shirt hung loosely on his bony frame, his tiny hands clutching at his mother as his eyes glistened with tears before closing in exhaustion.

Desperate to save her child from what she had thought was diarrhoea, Haladu rushed Umar to the clinic. However, after he was diagnosed, the infant was discovered to be suffering from severe malnutrition.

The mother explained that Umar was placed on medication and certain types of food were prescribed for him. Unfortunately, his mother had struggled to get the medicines and food prescribed to make Umar well again. She now visits the clinic every week despite the long distance and the challenges posed by the hike in transport fare.

“The rise in the cost of food items has made my child unable to get the necessary hygienic food. Even as the mother, I am not feeding well, so how do you expect my child to get nutrients from the breast he sucks,” Haladu lamented tearfully.

“The drugs and food they recommended for him, I can’t buy them. I don’t have a job, and my husband’s work is not steady,” she said.

Malnutrition, a silent killer

Malnutrition occurs when people consistently do not consume or absorb the right amounts and types of food and essential nutrients.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), the major forms of childhood malnutrition include undernutrition (stunting, wasting, and underweight), overweight and obesity and diet-related noncommunicable diseases (such as diabetes and hypertension later in life).

The most visible forms in Nigeria, especially in Kano, are wasting and stunting. Stunting (low height for age) is caused by long-term nutritional deprivation. It affects brain development, school performance, and future productivity, while wasting (low weight for height) signals recent and severe weight loss, often from acute food shortage or disease, and poses a high risk of death.

Children who are malnourished have weakened immunity, leaving them prone to frequent infections such as diarrhoea, pneumonia, and malaria. A simple childhood illness can become fatal when compounded by poor nutrition.

Data from the WHO shows that globally in 2022, 149 million children under five were estimated to be stunted, 45 million were estimated to be wasted, and 37 million were overweight or living with obesity.

The WHO said nearly half of deaths among children under five years of age are linked to undernutrition, most of which occur in low- and middle-income countries.

According to the 2023 Nigeria Demographic and Health Survey, Nigeria has about 19.8 million children who are malnourished, making it the country with the highest burden in Africa and the second highest in the world. 

The report shows that Kano State has 1.5 million children under five years of age who are stunted.

Doctors warn that children who survive early malnutrition often face lifelong consequences, including poor cognitive development, delayed growth, learning difficulties, and increased risk of chronic diseases in adulthood.

More cases

Umar’s case is not isolated. Health workers at the Aminu Kano Comprehensive Teaching Hospital (AKCTH), Kumbotso, say they are often overwhelmed by the growing number of children presenting with signs of severe acute malnutrition, visible signs of wasting, swollen feet, and listlessness.

On one afternoon, 35-year-old Maryam Alhassan, a resident of Garun Babba in the Garun Malam LGA, fought back tears after her seven-month-old daughter, Aisha was diagnosed with acute malnutrition at the teaching hospital. Although she was later referred to Hasiya Bayero hospital, she could not afford the cost of treatment.

“I don’t have money, I begged the doctors there for help to help me with food I can give my child, but they refused, saying that my child must be at least six months before they can attend to her,” Alhassan said.

When she gave birth to Aisha, Alhassan was unable to breastfeed due to medical complications. Her breasts being devoid of milk, she relied on the baby formula, which, sadly, she could no longer afford due to its rising cost. Aisha suffered from diarrhoea, heat rashes, and cough. Just like Umar, she was thin, with sunken and pale eyes.

Rising hunger

Over the past two years, malnutrition in Kano has been aggravated by high food prices, insecurity, and the economic hardship triggered by the removal of fuel subsidies.

Before President Bola Tinubu announced the removal of subsidy, Haladu said she struggled but could still afford two meals a day. Now, that has become impossible.

What she earns from making awara (local cheese) is barely enough to afford food and medicines for herself and her family. Her son, Umar, survives on pap, awara, rice, and spaghetti. Occasionally, she manages to buy tombrown, a porridge mix made from millet, groundnut, soya beans, and crayfish.

Tombrown is a polite, short-term label health workers use for the porridge given to children suffering from severe protein-energy deficiency, a condition that Umar developed after he was weaned off breast milk and put on a carbohydrate-heavy diet.

Each morning, tombrown is brought to Umar and more than 20 other children in the hospital. An NGO supplies them with the beverage. It is meant for families who cannot afford packaged nutritional supplements, such as baby food.

At some point, Aisha’s mother, Alhassan, also received tombrown, which she said cost around ₦50,000. But it didn’t last more than two weeks due to her child’s severe condition and the need for what she describes as constant feeding.

“As of then, my husband and I had no money for another. Sometimes I went out begging or borrowed money to buy her custard,” she said. With the current increase in food prices, I cannot afford custard anymore. My child is currently feeding on pap.”

Tinubu policies’ impact 

Before Nigeria’s inflation peaked in 2023 and 2024, food prices steadily climbed, worsened by poor governance, economic crises, prolonged conflicts, and climate change. According to a report, food prices in Nigeria rose by 21.14 per cent in May 2025 compared to the same month in 2024. The report also indicates that food inflation in Nigeria had averaged 14.06 per cent since 1996, peaking at 40.87 per cent in June 2024, one of the highest in the country’s history.

A report showed that by 2023, Nigerians spent 59 per cent of their income on food, the highest in the world.

When President Tinubu announced the removal of fuel subsidies on 29 May 2023, living costs surged dramatically. Transportation fares skyrocketed, and the ripple effects pushed the prices of everyday essentials beyond reach.

By August 2023, the average Nigerian household was already spending ₦48,186 per month on groceries, and this has only increased since. Four years before then, Nigerians spent ₦22.8 trillion on food, more than half (56.7 per cent) of the total amount they spent on household expenses (₦40.2 trillion).

While the government insisted subsidy removal was necessary to revive the economy, its ripple effects pushed many families, especially the poor, deeper into poverty and hunger. The cost of basics such as rice, milk, custard, and baby formula doubled or tripled in many communities.

In one measure to cushion the effect of fuel subsidy removal, the federal government disbursed N5 billion in financial support to each state. However, two years later, people who spoke to this reporter said they had not received any improved intervention from the government to cushion the subsidy’s effect.

Survival at any cost

At the AKCTH in Kumbotso, 37-year-old Maraisiya Dahiru sat by a corner as flies buzzed over upturned buckets of water. She watched her toddler, Abdulmalik, suck on a piece of biscuit, the only food she could afford that morning.

Her husband, who was once a commercial motorcyclist, could not cope with the high cost of petrol. With passengers dwindling and profits crashing, he stays home most days or wanders nearby villages in search of farm work.

“My husband is struggling, and I am as well, so the child hardly gets better food to eat due to this hardship,” she said, adding that, “The head of my child is now growing bigger.”

Health experts explained that the “big head” appearance is a sign of kwashiorkor, a severe form of acute malnutrition caused mainly by protein deficiency. While a child may look swollen, the body is dangerously starved of nutrients.

Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) is the most critical form of undernutrition. Children appear extremely thin, fragile, with dangerously low weight compared to their height, and often suffer from nutritional oedema (swelling in the feet, face, and limbs).

Dahiru, a mother of eight, said Abdulmalik is the only one among her children who has suffered malnutrition. “I can’t estimate how much we are spending, but sometimes feeding alone costs about N30,000 to N50,000 monthly. Other times, the child doesn’t even get the necessary food or drugs,” she said.

The sharp rise in food prices forced many low-income households to cut meal portions, skip meals entirely, or rely on cheaper, nutrient-poor diets.

Although the inflation figure dropped to 22.97 per cent in June, this has not directly translated to low food prices and affordability.

Burdened mothers, vulnerable children

When this reporter arrived at the specialist hospital in Kumbotso, the centre was tense and overcrowded by parents seeking health professional interventions.

In one corner of a consultation room, Naima Adam from Dorayi cradled her child tightly on her lap, her eyes fixed on the nurse in front of her. Moments earlier, she had been told that her daughter was suffering from malnutrition and required immediate admission.

Adam, 35, said the illness began with her child losing appetite, swelling, and persistent fever. Unable to afford baby formula, she relied on groundnut custard mixed with millet and wheat, a homemade alternative to baby food, passed down from older women in the neighbourhood.

But even that has become difficult to sustain. According to her, a small bucket of groundnut flour now sells for N3,500, and after adding millet and wheat, she spends between ₦15,000 and ₦20,000 in two weeks.

“If this surge in prices continues, I don’t know how our children will be, and the number of malnourished children will increase because most households cannot afford to feed their families well,” she noted.

In Gaida Makada, another mother, Rabiatu Adamu, faced a similar ordeal. Months earlier, she noticed her six-year-old daughter, Hauwau, rapidly losing weight.

“The time I gave birth to my child, she was looking chubby and good, eventually she started emaciating and later developed a neural disease,” she said.

For children like Hauwau, weakened immune systems cannot fight off even the most common infections. Diseases such as measles, bronchopneumonia, and tuberculosis spread easily, often accompanied by relentless fevers, chronic diarrhoea, vomiting, and swollen feet.

Globally, the picture is no less alarming. UNICEF estimates that four out of five children facing food poverty survive on little more than breastmilk, cow milk, or starchy staples like rice, maize, or wheat, diets that fail to provide the nutrients required for healthy growth.

Nigeria’s deepening child food crisis

Although Nigeria has long struggled with malnutrition, recent UNICEF data shows that one in three children in Nigeria experiences severe child food poverty.

According to the 2024 UNICEF Child Food Poverty Report, at least 32 per cent of Nigerian children under the age of five were living in severe food poverty as of 2022.

This condition is defined by the consumption of food from no more than two food groups per day.

This places Nigeria in the same high-burden category as India, Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Somalia, where widespread nutritional deprivation among children is a life-threatening emergency.

While state-level data is limited, Kano remains one of the worst-affected.  A 2023 report by Channels Television revealed that in the state, only 10.1 per cent of babies are exclusively breastfed; 15.7 per cent are fed with minimum diet diversity, and a mere 10.6 per cent receive food from animal sources such as meat, milk and eggs.

This is the situation of many nursing mothers who spoke to The ICIR.

As UNICEF has warned, children surviving on empty calories, breastmilk or starchy staples like pap, maize, or rice are deprived of the proteins, vitamins, and minerals critical for brain and body development. This lack of dietary diversity impairs physical and cognitive growth, increases the risk of early death, and traps children in a generational cycle of poverty and poor health.

Mothers turn beggars to feed their sick children

Alhassan, a resident of Garun Babba, while explaining her ordeals, said she often resorts to street begging just to afford basic meals for her ailing daughter.

She explained how her daily routine revolves around keeping her child alive.

“Sometimes, if I have money, I used to feed her with custard and milk, but whenever I feed her, she purges. So, I started feeding her biscuits and warm water with no improvement,” she said.

Like Alhassan, Zainab Ibrahim, another mother from Dawakin Kudu Local Government Area, struggles with a similar issue. She has had to rely on neighbours and strangers to feed her malnourished one-year-old son.

“I also engage in street begging to feed my child. He has two sisters who didn’t have this problem when I was breastfeeding them, but his own case is different.”

Children on low-nutrient diets face life-threatening risks- Experts

A nutrition expert, Monica Aleto, said such stories reflect a worsening crisis in northern Nigeria, where desperate mothers feed their children whatever they can find, often with dire consequences.

Aleto, a paediatric nutritionist, explained that diets lacking in essential vitamins, minerals, and proteins expose children to severe acute malnutrition, stunted growth, developmental delays, and life-threatening infections.

“Feeding malnourished children with pap, biscuits, and water only keeps them alive temporarily. Pap provides only carbohydrates for energy. There is no protein in that diet. Biscuits are refined and carry no real nutritional value,” she said.

She added that malnourished children’s systems are too weak, and without nutrient-rich therapeutic food, they are prone to diseases.

“Their immediate risk of eating that kind of food is undernutrition, which can lead to severe malnutrition, low immunity (this can predispose them to any disease like tuberculosis, malaria and pneumonia) and developmental problems.”

She further noted that the situation in Kano is compounded by poor sanitation, lack of clean water, and limited access to healthcare.

UNICEF corroborates this, warning that undernourished children are more likely to die from preventable illnesses. Globally, pneumonia, diarrhoea, and malaria accounted for about 30 per cent of under-five deaths in 2019, with child pneumonia deaths strongly linked to undernutrition, unsafe water, poor sanitation, and lack of healthcare.

State government accused of misusing relief funds

Despite the high cases of malnutrition across Kano, health workers say the state’s interventions remain grossly inadequate.

The state government confirmed receiving N5 billion from the federal government to alleviate hardship caused by President Tinubu policies.

However, the Commissioner for Information, Baba Dantiye, reportedly said that a significant part of the funds was allocated to social projects, including mass weddings and tuition relief.

Dantiye explained that the state received ‘N2 billion in cash and N3 billion in kind’ from the federal government. The state government decided to use part of the cash release to fund the 1,800 mass weddings (N834 million), tuition fees for 7,000 students, and the slashing of 50 per cent fees in tertiary institutions.

“While some states reduced the cost of foodstuffs as part of the palliative, the governor of Kano State promised to share foodstuffs for free. Currently, a committee has been set up to design the mode of distribution so that both urban and rural areas will benefit,” he said.

Critics, however, argue that such expenditures overlook the urgent and growing hunger crisis, especially among women and children in rural communities.

The high cost of food in Kano continues to worsen the nutrition gap for women and children. Many mothers are unable to meet their dietary needs or provide adequate meals for their children, increasing the risk of malnutrition and related illnesses.

Health experts warn that without improved access to affordable, nutritious food and stronger interventions to support vulnerable households, malnutrition in Kano may persist, with long-term implications for child survival and development.