What Aid Cuts Mean for Nigeria’s Hunger Crisis Amid Ongoing Violence

By: Jenna Perrone

Photo by REUTERS/Temilade Adelaja

On the evening of Dec. 25, 2025, President Donald Trump announced that the U.S. launched a series of airstrikes aimed at northwestern Nigeria and meant to target Islamic militants. President Trump stated the strikes were a result of what he described as unheeded warnings for the ISIS militants to “stop the slaughtering of Christians.” Violence against Christians in Nigeria has been a point of concern over recent months, particularly amidst reports of numerous kidnappings of children, churchgoers, and other civilians in November and December. 

However, confusion has dominated the discussion of religious violence in Nigeria. According to the BBC, while the Nigerian government has asserted that the Islamic militant groups Boko Haram and Islamic State in West Africa Province are to blame for the uptick in kidnappings, some analysts believe these kidnappings are traditional ransom kidnappings carried out by local bandit groups. Moreover, residents of Jabo, one of the villages hit in President Trump’s Christmas Day airstrike, claim that there are no known terrorist groups operating in the town, leading them to question why their village was targeted. 

Lost in the debate over who to blame for these ongoing issues, however, is the devastating effect such violence is having on innocent civilians in Nigeria, effects that are likely to worsen in the coming months as a result of massive humanitarian aid cuts. According to the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), roughly 35 million people in Nigeria could face acute food insecurity by mid-2026. Ongoing violence in the region is at least partially to blame for this impending crisis, as fear of attacks by armed groups disrupts the safe transport of food between communities, leaving food-insecure areas undersupplied while surplus regions cannot distribute their goods.  Left vulnerable and economically strained, these regions are prone to instability and extortion by terrorist organizations. 

Compounding the crisis is the dire financial situation of the WFP, which has already been forced to shut down approximately 150 nutrition clinics in northeastern Nigeria, leaving millions of people without desperately needed aid. The WFP previously faced a shutdown scare in the summer of 2025 when its emergency food aid program was set to run out of funding by the end of July. Although the program was able to acquire emergency funds for its operations in Nigeria, only 21% of the $130 million requested was granted, leaving the program drastically underfunded.

 

The WFP’s financial strain comes at a time when humanitarian aid is seeing widespread cuts, including President Trump’s complete dismantling of the United States Agency for International Development, which was previously the largest provider of foreign aid in the world. In the past, the U.S., in particular, has provided nearly half of the WFP’s budget, including a $32.5 million donation in September 2025 meant to provide assistance in northeastern and northwestern Nigeria. With only enough funding to sustain its operations in Nigeria through the end of 2025, though, further cutbacks, or even the complete shuttering of WFP aid in this region, appear imminent in 2026. If that happens, Nigerians will be left vulnerable not only to ongoing localized violence and resulting U.S. airstrikes, but also to the rising threat of acute hunger. 

The views expressed in this publication are the authors' own and do not necessarily reflect the position of The Rice Journal of Public Policy, its staff, or its Editorial Board.

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