Lagos Food Bank provides vulnerable citizens with food packs

Nigeria, Africa's largest economy is grappling with rising food prices that's affecting the living standards of people. According to the World Bank, inflation was likely to push an additional one million Nigerians into poverty by the end of 2022.

Various groups have come up with initiatives to help indigent families. One of such initiatives is the Lagos food Bank Initiative (LBFI) led by Michael Sunbola.

"What we are doing here today is like frontline assistance to those who are at the end of hunger and food insecurity. We go from one community to the other, profiling families and seeing their level of vulnerability, looking at their purchasing power, disposable income and see how we can come in to help bridge that hunger gap. If you look at the situation of the country, prices of food have gone really high".

Some beneficiaries want the government to address inflation, and live up to its responsibilities to citizens.

"If this is not done, with the scarcity of food right now. I don’t think people afford it. I wanted to buy 1.5 litres of kerosine which was 200 naira, is now 1500. You can just imagine the amount.", this beneficiary says.

"We beg our government to provide us with the necessary basic needs, during elections we work for them. We use our permanent voter cards to queue and vote for them. Please tell our government not to forget us".

But there is in fact more to deal with. At least 17 million Nigerian children are undernourished, the second highest in the world according to a 2021 UNICEF report. This is a cause for concern for this nutritionist.

"The government can empower PHC which are Primary health care centres so they can be able to efficiently tackle food malnutrition at the grassroot level. Food insecurity has a big role to play in malnutrition, if the food insecurity is sort of tackled. We definitely see a reduction in malnutrition cases".

According to Nigeria's national bureau of statistics, Food inflation is at 23.12 percent while unemployment stands at 33.30 percent.

With the current dire situation, many here believe initiatives like this will help tackle hunger and malnutrition among indigent families across the country.

David Taylor reporting for Africanews in Lagos.