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An Extrapolation Study on the Politics of Food Aid in Africa in View of the Danger it Portends for the Internally 

Displaced Persons' Household Food Security: A Special Focus on Northeast Nigeria 
Victor Chijioke  Nwosumba 

AN EXTRAPOLATION STUDY ON THE POLITICS OF FOOD AID IN 

AFRICA IN VIEW OF THE DANGER IT PORTENDS FOR THE 

INTERNALLY DISPLACED PERSONS' HOUSEHOLD FOOD SECURITY: A 

SPECIAL FOCUS ON NORTHEAST NIGERIA 

 

Victor Chijioke  Nwosumba PhD. 

Department of Political Science 

Federal University Ndufu-Alike, Ikwo, Ebonyi State 

Email:vcnwosumba@gmail.com; victor.nwosumba.funai.edu.ng 

 
Abstract 
That Africa is in dire need of food security now as never before is not in doubt. This is so because 

hunger is widespread, poverty is on the increase, population is exploding, unemployment is 

massive, food prices are skyrocketing and the issue of internally displaced persons is on the rise. 

To cushion the effects of these challenges, food aid seems to be an expedient option. Against the 

foregoing, the purpose of this paper is to extrapolate food aid politics in Africa in view of the 

danger it portends for the internally displaced persons' household food security focusing 

specially on Northeast Nigeria where there are as many as 2.2million idps. Adopting futures 

studies approach, the paper observes from an array of secondary sources that food aid politics 

in Africa had at different times threatened the peoples' food security. The paper argues that in so 

far as food aid remains a political tool for achieving divergent interests, it has potential dangers 

for the idps’ household food security especially those in Northeast Nigeria where rehabilitation 

programme is ongoing. These dangers are likely to be more for the most vulnerable-women and 

children. The aid programme has the potential of making women and children develop Western 

consumerism habit which they may not be able to maintain when aid stops. The implication of 

this is a new wave of household food insecurity arising from detesting some native food, not 

having access to adequate supply of the cherished food and lacking the zeal to go back to the 

farm. To be out of the debacle they may go into prostitution, child labour, early marriage, 

begging or house helping-short term measures that do not guarantee long term household food 

security. To forestall this danger, the federal government that is rehabilitating the Northeast 

should make sure it handles the aid programme with caution even if the donors insist on business 

as usual. Education of the women and children should be the priority so they can know how 

best to manage the post aid period. 

 

Keywords: Africa, Food Aid Politics, Food Security, Household Food security, Internally 

Displaced Persons, Northeast Nigeria.  

  

INTRODUCTION 

It is impossible to make a sense of world 

politics without reference to security 

matters (Williams, 2003). This is largely 

true following the worsening food 

security situations as well as exponential 

rate of increase in the number of 

internally displaced persons hereafter 

referred to as the idps in Africa. These 

critical security matters are no doubt, by-

products of politics. In confirming this 

 



 

 

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claim, Clover (2003) reveals that 

whereas global, national and human 

security issues are increasingly 

converging and in some regions, 

overlapping, a situation that makes some 

840 million people worldwide to be 

malnourished, the highest percentage of 

these are in Africa. This implies that the 

magnitude of the problem in Africa has 

now reached unprecedented crisis level 

thereby making the continent as Clover 

asserts, one that receives most aid, with 

some 30 million people requiring 

emergency food aid in any one year. 

 

The point therefore is that since 2003 

when Clover made the above 

observations and claims, instead of 

Africa’s crisis situation improving, it is 

deteriorating, a fact which manifests for 

example in the number of idps in 

Northeastern Nigeria where Boko 

Haram insurgency has devastated the 

region, its economy and people thereby 

making many households to face food 

insecurity situations of an alarming 

proportion. This situation and others 

continually make aid programmes an 

integral part of the strategies and 

programmes for the reconstruction and 

rehabilitation of many devastated areas 

and peoples in the continent. Evidence 

has it that 60% of the World. Food 

Programme’s work now takes place in 

Africa (Clover, 2003). 

 

However, the argument arising from the 

increasing issues pertaining to food aid 

in Africa is that it is politically motivated 

and as such fails largely to address the 

vulnerable people’s household food 

insecurity. Take for instance, the appeal 

to the international community in 2002 

by Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe and 

Lesotho for aid never stabilized their 

food insecurity situations even when 

there were responses. Earlier before 

2002, the same Lesotho was offered 

emergency food aid in 1972/73 by 

Britain following an unfortunate drought 

condition in the country (Stevens, 1979). 

The logic therefore is, if food aid was all 

that good for Lesotho, why didn’t the 

country stabilize its food security as to 

avoid the 2002 appeal for another 

international aid. The foregoing logic 

thus confirms that food aid is as close to 

an ideal form of aid as can likely be 

found in an imperfect world. As Marsh 

(1996:364) puts it, “donations of aid 

give the impression that the rich nations 

are indeed helping their unfortunate 

friends. In reality, aid is often a double-

edged sword.” This logic nevertheless is 

the basis for the making of this paper as 

it seeks to extrapolate the politics of food 

aid in view of the danger it portends for 

the idps household food security 

especially in Northeast Nigeria where 

rehabilitation and reconstruction 

projects are on-going.  To achieve this 

aim, the paper is divided into sections 

such as methodology, literature review, 

the politics of food aid and food security 

in Africa, the impending danger of the 

politics of food aid on the idps 

household food security in Northeast 

Nigeria, conclusion and 

recommendations. 

 

 

 



 

 

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An Extrapolation Study on the Politics of Food Aid in Africa in View of the Danger it Portends for the Internally 

Displaced Persons' Household Food Security: A Special Focus on Northeast Nigeria 
Victor Chijioke  Nwosumba 

Methodology 

This paper adopts the methods and 

approaches of futures studies. Generally, 

as argued, futures studies do not pretend 

to be able to predict the future but rather, 

assesses the probabilities of alternating 

futures. So, apart from the study, 

analysis is carried out to ascertain how 

particular situations and environment 

could be affected as a result of a policy 

implementation or action taken by a 

country (Saedah, 2005). As such, in 

extrapolating politics of food aid in 

Africa, this paper aims to present 

information and strategies that can 

enable the Nigerian, government, states, 

institutions etc. plan the future of the 

Northeast in particular and Nigeria in 

general in order to reduce dependency 

on food aid as a measure of achieving 

household food security for the 

vulnerable class, especially the idps. The 

paper relies heavily on secondary 

sources of information as well as 

observational method in order to achieve 

the aim. Although, futures studies as a 

method and an approach have 

limitations such as relying heavily on 

human judgement which cannot be 100 

percent correct and not being able in 

some cases to make forecasts of some 

complex systems possible, it has the 

potential of predicting the future based 

on facts available. For instance, insofar 

as food aid politics since inception has 

not helped establish household food 

security in places it has been played in 

Africa as the Southern African examples 

have shown, this paper predicts that the 

result may not be too different in the case 

of Northeast Nigeria except the Nigerian 

government and other food aid policy 

makers and implementers have to 

change the status quo. 

 

Literature Review 

 

Food Security 

The 1996 World Summit in Rome 

having looked at issues surrounding 

food security has defined it as a state 

when all people, at all times, have 

physical and economic access to 

sufficient, safe and nutritious food to 

meet their dietary needs and food 

preferences for an active and healthy life 

(Food and Agriculture Organization, 

1996). By implication what is important 

in this definition is the fact that not only 

is food to be available, it has to be easily 

accessed by everybody at an affordable 

rate, at anytime. The available food, 

Moreso, has to be safe and nutritious as 

to be able to provide the consumer with 

the required kilocalories needed for 

active and healthy life. Earlier, the 

United Nations has conceived food 

security as all people at all times having 

both physical and economic access, and 

not just access to the basic food they 

need, a point the committee on World 

Food Security, a body set up in 1975 by 

the UN World Food Conference to 

oversee developments in food security, 

adopted in the early 1980’s through its 

recognition of food security as a 

tripartite concept, reflecting the criteria 

of availability, access and stability 

(http://www.interacademycouncil.net). 

 

However, food security involves 

multiplicity of factors and institutions 

http://www.interacademycouncil.net/


 

 

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including implementation of policies, 

strategies and programmes to guarantee 

its availability, accessibility, effective 

and efficient utilization by all people at 

all times. Based on the tripartite 

concepts of food security identified by 

United Nations above, UNEP 

(2002:288), further views food security 

from three dimensions: 

 Availability of sufficient quantities 

of food of appropriate quality, 

supplied through domestic 

production imports; 

 Access by households and 

individuals to appropriate foods 

for a nutritious diet;  

 Optimal uptake of nourishment, 

thanks to a sustaining diet, clean 

water and adequate sanitation with 

healthcare. 

 

Elucidating further, Laibuni, Omiti and 

Natu (http//elibrary.acbfpact.org) 

include domestic production, import 

capacity, availability of food stocks and 

food distribution systems in a country or 

region to what justifies availability of 

food. In terms of access to food, they are 

of the view that purchasing power (that 

is, incomes and wages, poverty level, 

prices and distribution of food, transport 

and market systems essentially 

determine food accessibility. Then, 

effective utilization of food is influenced 

by people’s culture, access to knowledge 

about proper nutrition, energy and clean 

water, points also noted by UNEP 

(2002).  

 

Summarizing what food security is, 

Food Security Continuum puts it thus: 

Food Security is not just a poverty issue; 

it is a much large issue that involves the 

whole food system and affects every one 

of us in some way. The food system 

includes: 

 

(1) Everyone who grows or catches 

food, like farmers, fishers, and 

hunters, 

(2) Earth, air, water, energy (the 

physical environment); 

(3) Food processors, packagers, 

distributors, marketers and 

advertisers; 

(4) Food wholesalers and the 

warehouses where food is stored; 

(5) The transportation system i.e., 

trucks, planes, boats, trains; 

(6) Places that sell food i.e., grocery 

stores, markets, bakeries, farm 

stands, co-ops, restaurants; 

(7) Governments, policies, taxes, (the 

political and economic 

environment); 

(8) The healthcare system, the 

workforce, schools, technology 

(the social, educational and 

cultural environment); 

(9) Everyone who eats! So, food 

security is in place when: 

(10) Farmers and fishers can earn a fair 

income for their efforts; 

(11) Food is produced in a way that is 

safe for people and the 

environment; 

(12) Local, regional, and community 

food production is supported; 

(13) Social justice and inclusion are 

priorities. 



 

 

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An Extrapolation Study on the Politics of Food Aid in Africa in View of the Danger it Portends for the Internally 

Displaced Persons' Household Food Security: A Special Focus on Northeast Nigeria 
Victor Chijioke  Nwosumba 

(14) All people are empowered to work 

together to create positive change 

in the food system and 

communities (Food Security 

Continuum). 

 

Food Insecurity 

Conversely, the corollary of food 

security, that is, food insecurity as Ikpi 

et al (1989) put it, is lack of access to 

enough food. This definition stems from 

the argument that it is not just enough to 

believe there is food security in the 

world because food is abundantly 

available but to have access to it is also 

important. According to Schuh (2002), 

the lack of food is due to the lack of the 

means to acquire it, it is not, in general, 

due to a shortfall in production. On this 

ground, Food Security Continuum 

summarizes that food insecurity happens 

whenever food is hard to get such as 

when: 

 

(15) There are no farms or grocery 

stores nearby; 

(16) Our food travels great distances 

to get to us; 

(17) There isn’t enough money; 

(18) Healthy and safe food is not 

available; 

(19) Healthy foods cost more than 

unhealthy foods; 

(20) Our rivers are polluted so fish 

don’t survive; 

(21) Our traditional foods are not 

available or accessible. 

 

As can be deduced from the above, 

Africa is suffering from food insecurity 

especially in areas where poverty is 

higher, war is ongoing or waning and 

food is hard to get. The Northeastern 

Nigeria presently fits into this kind of 

scenario due to so many years of boko 

haram devastation of the region. The 

worst hits are the internally displaced 

persons who suffer, above all 

mentioned, household food insecurity. 

Evidence of Africa’s food insecurity can 

be captured in International Federation 

of  Red Cross and Red Crescent 

societies(2009); The Economist (2004); 

www.WFP.org.  

 

Household Food Insecurity 

Amartya Sen has been credited with 

initiating the paradigm shift in the early 

1980s that brought focus to the issue of 

access and entitlement to food (Clover, 

2003). Thus, as remarked by Clover, 

food insecurity is no longer seen as 

failure of agriculture to produce 

sufficient food at the national level, but 

instead as a failure of livelihoods to 

guarantee access to sufficient food at the 

household level. The ability to ensure 

adequate food security therefore, hinges 

on the ability to identify vulnerable 

households who are at risk of becoming 

food insecure.  

 

Stemming from this backdrop, a 

household is food secure when it has 

access to the food needed for a healthy 

life for all its members (adequate in 

terms of quality, quantity, safety and 

culturally acceptable), and when it is not 

at undue risk of losing such access 

(http://www.unsystem.org/scn/archives/

scnnews07supplement/ch2.htm.Sequel 

to this, an appropriate proxy, therefore, 

http://www.wfp.org/
http://www.unsystem.org/scn/archives/scnnews07supplement/ch2.htm
http://www.unsystem.org/scn/archives/scnnews07supplement/ch2.htm


 

 

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in identifying vulnerable households, is 

how poor is a particular household 

measured against criterion or poverty-

line. The degree of vulnerability of an 

individual, household or group of 

persons is determined by their exposure 

to the risk factors and their ability to 

cope with or withstand stressful 

situations. The proposition therefore is 

that vulnerable households will 

constitute three groups: 

 

(22) Those who would be vulnerable 

under any circumstances: for 

example, where the adults are 

unable to provide an adequate 

livelihood for the household for 

reasons of disability, illness, age or 

some other characteristics, 

(23) Those whose resources endowment 

is inadequate to provide sufficient 

income from any available source; 

(24) Those whose characteristics and 

resources render them potentially 

vulnerable in the context of social 

and economic shocks; e.g. those 

who find it hard to adapt to sudden 

changes in economic activity 

brought about  by economic 

policy; 

 

As can be viewed from the television 

and other electronics media and even 

literature, the conditions of the idps and 

other vulnerable groups are not far from 

the proposals made above. Indeed, 

argues ttp;//www.interacademycouncil. 

net, food insecurity and conflict derive 

from a commons et of risk factors which 

include poor economic conditions, 

repressive political systems, weak 

institutions, natural resource 

degradation, scarce resources and 

unequal poverty growth, social and 

cultural polarization and large-scale 

migration. This has been confirmed by 

President Muhammadu Buhari during 

the recently concluded Paris Conference 

on Climate Change, when he informed 

the world that due to desert 

encroachment in Northeast Nigeria, 

many households have lost their means 

of livelihood and to survive, have 

migrated to Europe for greener pasture 

(Nwosumba, 2016). 

 

Food Aid 

Food aid is hard to define due to many 

related issues. However, in general, it is 

about providing food, a related 

assistance to tackle hunger, either in 

emergency situations or to help with 

deeper, long term hunger alleviation and 

achieve food (where people do not have 

to live in hunger or fear of starvation) 

(Shah, 2007). This definition logically 

insinuates that food aid is usually to be 

given in situations of need. In line with 

this logic, Barret and Maxwell (2004) 

conceive food aid as international 

concessional flows in the form of food 

or of cash to purchase food in support of 

food assistance programmes. At this 

juncture, it is interesting to deduce from 

Barret and Maxwell the fact that food aid 

and food assistance are interrelated so 

whether it is called food aid or food 

assistance they signify the same thing. 

Based on the deduction, this paper shall 

use both names interchangeably. 

 



 

 

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An Extrapolation Study on the Politics of Food Aid in Africa in View of the Danger it Portends for the Internally 

Displaced Persons' Household Food Security: A Special Focus on Northeast Nigeria 
Victor Chijioke  Nwosumba 

However, notwithstanding that the later 

definition connotes that of the first, Shah 

(2007) is of eh view that there is a key 

distinction, the second one makes and 

that is that international sourcing of 

concessional resources is tied to the 

provision of food, whether by a donor or 

to a recipient. The implication as 

observed by Shah is that food aid has 

been tied with conditions which benefit 

the donor and this has been one of the 

reasons food aid has not been effective; 

instead of benefiting the recipients more, 

it is the multinational food companies 

and donors that enjoy the large benefit. 

On this basis it is rightly debatable to 

conclude that food aid is largely driven 

by donors and international institutions 

(typically influenced by the interests of 

the donors). Food aid is one of the most 

effective devices for alleviating transient 

hunger in emergencies The argument is 

that, in such situations, where large 

households are simultaneously affected, 

food aid is the most effective insurance 

mechanism to reduce vulnerability to 

transient hunger and starvation, as 

households have few options 

(http://www.interacademycouncil.net).  

 

This, however, does not mean that in all 

ramifications, food aid promotes food 

security especially at the household level 

in recipient countries. To some people, 

food aid is as close to an ideal form of 

aid as we are likely to find in an 

imperfect world (Stevens, 1979). Food 

aid, to say the obvious, is a kind of 

foreign aid which is given mainly by ‘a 

have country’ to the vulnerable groups 

in ‘a have less’ country which 

tantamount to political interest. For an 

example, the definition of foreign aid by 

former President John Kennedy of 

United States as “a method by which the 

United States maintains a position of 

influence and control around the world 

and sustains a good many countries 

which would definitely collapse…” 

(Magdoff, 1968) captures the political 

motif for foreign aid in general. 

 

Further, foreign aid agencies provide an 

opening wedge or point of entry for 

private capital through making loans 

directly to the global giants both for 

feasibility studies and actual 

implementations and sponsor aid 

programmes such as Food for Peace 

(Offiong, 1980). This point however can 

better be captured in a situation where 

World Food Programme has been 

designated since 1963 to alleviate acute 

hunger by providing emergency relief 

following natural or man-made 

humanitarian disasters and to supply 

food aid to people in developing 

countries in order to eradicate chronic 

under nourishment, support social 

development and promote self-reliant 

communities (Frame, Thomas, Holman 

et. al, 2008) but today these challenges 

have escalated. Instead of giving 

technical assistance to African countries 

in the form of transfer of technology, the 

industrialized countries prefer giving aid 

when and where they want through WFP 

and their other agencies. The implication 

of this is that food aid has some 

problems. It is the view of Schuh (2002) 

that food aid has strong disincentive 

effects for poor producers just as cheap 

http://www.interacademycouncil.net/


 

 

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imports can affect the morale of African 

farmers whose products cannot compete 

favourably with those from the advanced 

countries. Bissong (2004) in accord with 

Schuh refers to food aid as victimization 

through charity which continues to 

create dependencies. It is on the 

observation of this, especially taking a 

clue from other African countries where 

food aid was more detrimental to their 

food security, that this paper seeks to 

advice the rehabilitators of Northeast 

Nigeria to be cautions with food aid. 

 

The Politics of Food Aid and Food 

Security in Africa 

Certain questions are necessarily needed 

to be answered before a good 

understanding of food aid politics and 

worsening state of household food 

security in Africa can be made. For 

instance, why is it that it is only the 

world food programme that is the only 

multilateral organization in the world 

with a mandate to use food aids as 

resource? Why is it that even when more 

foods are available unlike many years 

ago, they are still not easily accessed by 

the poor in Africa? More so, why is it 

that food aid is as close to an ideal form 

of aid as is likely to be found in an 

imperfect world? Also, why is it that in 

spite of the fact that the right to food is 

one of those most consistently 

mentioned in international human rights 

documents, it is the most frequently 

violated in recent times? 

 

In the words of FAO (2002:1), “no 

human right has been so frequently and 

spectacularly violated in recent times as 

right to food.” This is done without 

considering the fact that the right to food 

is one of the most consistently enshrined 

rights in international human rights law, 

as constantly reaffirmed by governments 

(clover, 2003). The fundamental right of 

everyone to be free from hunger is 

established in Article II of the 

international covenant on economic, 

social and cultural law inspired by the 

Universal declaration of Human Rights 

(food security Guide). Thus, it is right to 

claim that Africa’s food security 

including those of national, Local and 

household problems stem from 

disregard of the fundamental right to 

food. On this ground however, many 

critics have alleged that decision making 

at the national and international levels 

have relied on the defied neo-liberal 

paradigm of wealth maximization 

through comparative advantage to create 

food insecurity and more so undermine 

the unity and hope for food security in 

Africa in the near future (Clover, 2003; 

Mwaniki, www.un.org/Africa; Goshit, 

2003; Eke, 2009). Nwaniki 

(www.un.org/Africa) for instance, 

stresses this point further to the extent of 

blaming the interrelation of the various 

dimensions of globalization where 

policies made in one country are bound 

to have effects on others for Africa’s 

worsening food insecurity. This is so 

because while the rules and practice of 

international trade play a key role in 

achieving food security in the world free 

trade is not good for African countries 

who face huge trade barriers from those 

who control the process, i.e. the 

developed, industrialized nations. The 



 

 

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An Extrapolation Study on the Politics of Food Aid in Africa in View of the Danger it Portends for the Internally 

Displaced Persons' Household Food Security: A Special Focus on Northeast Nigeria 
Victor Chijioke  Nwosumba 

implication of this anomaly is that 

instead of practicing the policy of 

openness as enshrined in various 

international trade agreements, the 

developed/industrialized nations have 

overtly and covertly protected their 

markets and by so doing left African 

markets in disadvantaged positions. The 

result therefore is that through unequal 

trade relations between Africa and the 

centre countries, agricultural products 

have become worthless mainly because 

of subsidies these countries advance to 

their farmers and industries. A case to 

buttress this point is where in 2002-

2003, a collapse in coffee prices at the 

international market contributed to the 

Ethiopian food crisis the same period 

(Mason, 2006). This is a result of the 

policy of protectionism practiced in the 

name of national interest by the 

industrialized nations who eventually 

force Africa to open its markets in the 

name of trade liberalization. 

 

Imagine a situation where in 2001/2002 

the United States subsidized its cotton 

farmers by almost 4 billion dollars while 

the entire cotton production for the same 

period was 3 billion dollars (Ekoriko, 

2004). This implies that the farmers got 

in subsidies more than the value of their 

output, a situation which resulted to the 

inability of some cotton exporting 

countries like Mali, Burkina Faso, Chad 

and Benin not to compete favourably. 

 

As a spill-over effect of over-

subsidization of agricultural production 

in the industrialized countries by their 

governments, African countries find 

their domestic markets under cut by 

cheap food imports dumped by these 

rich countries. Worst still, these over 

subsidized foods are the ones given to 

Africans as food aid. The logic that is 

rife here is that worsening household 

food insecurity and food insecurity at 

large in Africa are artificially created by 

these measures and with the 

collaboration of the indigenous 

bourgeois class in the countries. This is 

so because as WTO which is charged 

with the responsibility of binding 

government to keep to the trade policies 

agreed upon by member countries fails 

to do so thereby allowing some countries 

to over subsidize while others cannot, it 

has indirectly pushed local farmers in 

Africa out of business due to dumping of 

cheap import which comparatively is not 

even cheap for the poor but for the fact 

that many households really depend on  

proceeds (goods and money) from their 

farms to survive, they cannot buy due to 

lack of money. The implication of this is 

that many households that lack means to 

buy food at any rate are landed into a 

state of household’s food insecurity. If 

this is not offloading politics in the name 

of food aid, why should it take about 

four to five months for food to be 

delivered in some cases from donor 

countries to African countries where 

there are emergencies and urgent need 

for food. Take for instance the Niger 

Republic experience where in late 2004 

there were earliest warnings of 

emergency food situation in that country 

but due to the late response of the major 

powers or even WFP, by the time aid 



 

 

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arrived, 3.6 million people were already 

suffering from hunger (Mason, 2006). 

 

This experience therefore serves as a 

lesson to those who believe that food aid 

is just a humanitarian gesture given to 

the vulnerable, endangered and 

displaced persons by the developed, rich 

countries. They however fail to know 

that inasmuch as food aid is not all that 

reliable as to have it immediately as the 

need arises and as it is not sustainable; it 

is never the less a political instrument for 

advancing neo- imperialism and 

subjecting the recipients to a perpetual 

state of dependency. The argument is in 

consonance with Galtung (1973) stance 

that the relationship between the Third 

World (Africa inclusive) and the rich 

nations is not a relation that aims at 

equalizing the status quo. In support of 

this line of thought Good Security Guide 

(www.oneworld .net/guides remarks 

that even when the US is the largest food 

donor, it remains in thrall to domestic 

political  interests which insist that aid 

should be disbursed as surplus grain 

from national stocks – and that the chain 

of delivery must be handled largely by 

US contractors. 

 

Based on the foregoing, some people 

conceive food aid as being as close to an 

ideal form of aid can likely be found in 

an imperfect world (Stevens, 1979). The 

criticism however is that even when 

food aid achieves a happy union 

between the interests of the recipients 

and those of farmers in the donor 

countries as it pertains to Africa, it does 

not fully in most cases satisfy the interest 

of the recipients but those of the 

capitalists. Elaborating this point, 

Stevens is of the view that food aid is 

particularly pernicious since it exists 

largely to help sustain inefficient 

agricultural policies in developed 

countries and to increase the leverage 

that its donors can exert on poor 

countries and that furthermore it not 

only fails to benefit the recipient 

adequately to compensate for these costs 

but actually puts less developed 

countries farmers out of business, leads 

their children to adopt exotic tastes that 

can be satisfied only by imports, and 

enables their government to neglect 

agricultural reform. Relevantly, the 

essence of this paper has been captured 

in the sense that if food aid has been like 

this in most places, the Nigerian state, 

states in the Northeast and the idps 

should be cautious at embracing it willy-

nilly. 

 

 Lesotho provides an example of how 

emergency relief can cause problem 

even if supplied on a fairly small scale to 

a relatively minor emergence. In Stevens 

(1979) account, Britain offered Lesotho 

emergency food aid following a drought 

in that country between 1972/73 but 

instead of the food aid helping to 

stabilize food security at that period, it 

caused some problems. The story is that 

following the offer by Britain, Lesotho 

responded that it could absorb 1,000 tons 

of wheat but when a firm offer came 

from United Kingdom it was for 

6,000tons. As Africans are known to be 

insatiable of attracting aid, Lesotho 

government accepted the increased 

http://www.oneworld/


 

 

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quantity notwithstanding its limited 

storage capacity and went ahead to also 

receive another emergency food aid of 

over 1,000 tons of wheat against 622 

tons it requested earlier, and at the same 

time, received its normal development 

food aid deliveries. When all these 

culminated into a big chunk, the Lesotho 

government faced the challenge of 

managing them. The result was the 

diversion of Lesotho government 

personnel away from the management of 

routine food aid into the task of storing 

and disposing of the surplus wheat, the 

construction of six new storage sheds at 

the cost of R 45,000, and the loss 

through rotting of many bags of wheat. 

The fact that Lesotho never managed the 

food aid given to it well because it was 

in excess justifies the claim that most 

donors use food aid as an opportunity to 

off load the excesses from their over 

subsidized food production and as well 

implicates that African governments 

have high gullibility for any type of aid 

and not only the food related ones. That 

Lesotho after this never achieved 

relative food security not to talk of 

sustainable one goes a long way to prove 

that food aid in Africa is highly 

politicized, it benefits the donors and 

their cohorts more than those it is 

directed or claimed to be directed at. 

 

In a similar vein, in Nigeria, evidence 

has it that as some NGOs receive grants-

in-aid or subvention for various services, 

they usually do not direct them to those 

they are meant for, the victims of 

emergency situations, they direct some 

of the relief materials meant to serve 

their interest. Agboola (Daily 

sun,2007:6) for example, reports that 

UNICEF “have expressed 

dissatisfaction with the fact that most of 

the relief materials meant for persons 

displaced by some local government 

areas of plateau state have been diverted 

to unknown places. “According to the 

report, UNICEF field officer Mr. Jallo 

who led other officials to the victims in 

Pugani and Vashi  camps (all in 

Langtang LGA) and Gbonga camp in 

Kanke LGA because of this 

dissatisfaction decided to the handover 

to traditional the remaining items 

directly leads of the area (instead of the 

NGOs) to ensure that the items were safe 

by the time the officials returned another 

day. This report and other similar ones 

in Nigeria however, confirm that most 

Nigerians excel in the art of muddling 

through once grants-in-aid- are made 

(Akukwe, 1988). The point therefore is 

that food aid, like most types of aid 

breeds corruption to an extent that deters 

the expected recipients from having its 

full benefit. This negatively impact on 

household food security as it creates 

more hungry people within the fold of 

the-already-hungry and impoverished 

poor people. Legitimately, hunger is a 

political creation and it must be ended by 

political means (Clover, 2003). The 

Northeast people and Nigeria as a whole 

should be aware of these facts in order to 

avoid dangers. 

 

 

 



 

 

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Why Nursing the Fear of an 

Impending Danger for Northeast 

Nigeria IDPS? 

The fear of food aid depressing the 

Northeast Nigeria’s already ravaged 

agricultural production is nursed in this 

paper because if that happens, it may 

likely increase, the people dependence 

on food aid. It implies therefore that the 

idps are likely to remain in camps in 

order to attract more food aid. This is not 

in any way good for them as food aid 

doesn’t guarantee long-term household 

food security. More so, it is not good to 

rely on food aid for a meaningful living 

in the sense that “all aid has an inherent 

potential to make the recipient 

dependent” (Stevens, 1979:17). The idps 

should rather, try to learn how to fish and 

not wait in perpetuity to be given fish. 

 

Even within the limits established for the 

aid, argues Stevens, food aid is often 

small input into a complex food 

production and marketing system to get 

to the rural poor direct. It is unevenly 

distributed as more distributions are 

made in the urban areas. This means that 

the idps in rural areas of the Northeast 

may be deprived access to a (big) chunk 

of the aid given. Alluding to the fact that 

there are challenges to humanitarian 

response in Northeast Nigeria, Imasuen 

(2015) opines that the absence of 

humanitarian law and policy framework 

in Nigeria to clearly define the roles and 

responsibilities of humanitarian 

agencies hampers the coordination of 

various humanitarian efforts. The lack of 

systematic data collection also continues 

to pose serious challenge of difficulty in 

estimating people in total number of idps 

in need as well as the lack of access to 

rural areas by humanitarian agencies due 

to its volatility (Global IDP Project, 

2014). This is politics and it portends 

danger because in a country where the 

federal government in a month hiked the 

price of fuel from N86.50 to N145 and 

people were obliged to live with it and 

they are managing with its 

consequences, motorcycle operators 

(a.k.a okada riders) were ordered out of 

major streets in some states and the 

federal capital territory and it subsists, 

where airplanes were deployed to roam 

the sky in search of oil and gas pipelines 

vandalizers and it subsists, it is 

doubtable table that in that nation some 

idps in rural areas are cut-off from 

receiving humanitarian aid because of 

lack of access to them. 

 

It simply means that there is lack of will 

to extend the services to them. The 

implication is that the governments 

(federal, state and local) have neglected 

the rural idps to a large extent and by 

doing so made them burden bearers of 

the consequences of bokoharamism in 

the region.  Their case is likely to worsen 

unless the government and distribution 

agencies especially the NGOs will go 

beyond conventional, orthodox wisdom 

to work more strategically in developing 

and implementing effective policies that 

can encompass all the idps in the region. 

So, in the absence of this, most rural 

idps’ fundamental right to food shall 

continue to be violated. When this goes 

on without checks, the tendency is that 

their household food security situation is 



 

 

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likely to worsen and this will mean that 

women and children who are more 

vulnerable to food threats and insecurity 

may resort to child labour, forced labour, 

sex hawking, boko haramism, robbery, 

migration to the cities etc in order to 

make ends meet. These activities 

nevertheless do not guarantee household 

food security in a mid-term not to talk of 

long term basis. 

 

Another impending danger of food aid 

politics on idps household food security 

lies on the argument that food aid 

packages are very rigid in the sense that 

people who receive them do not have a 

say in how these packages could be 

modified to suit their needs better. Using 

Malawi as an example, Jere (2007) 

observes that during a food crisis in the 

country, food aid packages provide 

maize and beans to the people in need 

because they are normal diet of most 

Malawians but vegetables are not 

included most of the time. This means 

that even when vegetables are normally 

used by the Malawians to compliment 

the diet of maize (carbohydrates) and 

beans (protein) for a more balanced diet 

in no crisis situation during the time of 

food aid supply, vegetables are often 

lacking not minding that they are 

critically needed in food aid packages as 

the people are not able to source them 

again because of the crisis that 

devastates the food system in most areas. 

 

In the case of the Northeast people of 

Nigeria whose traditional foods are for 

example just like most core northerners:  

 tuwon dawa, that is ground 

guinea corn eaten in swallow 

form with soups like kuka and 

okra; 

 tuwo shinkafa eaten with miyan 

kuka, that is, a meal of rice 

pudding and green draw-soup 

made from ground baobab leaf 

and special spices, preferably 

yaji (mixture of ground pepper, 

ginger, garlic and other 

seasonings/herbs), giving them a 

meal of highly processed 

noodles, spaghetti; macaroni and 

their like without enough of 

herbs, vegetables or spices may 

mean that some of them may 

begin to develop a new taste of a 

sweeter diet since the traditional 

foods although may be sweet but 

may not be fastly prepared and as 

sweet as these new ones. The 

implications of this type of 

change in taste and diet are 

multifacetedly far-reaching. 

First, over indulgence in eating 

highly processed food may most 

likely implant in the eater such 

diseases as diabetes, obesity etc. 

which are detrimental to the 

health of the person(s). When 

these diseases are blown to an 

advanced stage, they usually 

make the diseased to be weak 

and less productive thereby 

increasing the chances of 

household food insecurity for the 

families so affected. Money will 

be directed to treating them and 

they may not be able to be 

bringing either food or other 



 

 

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means of having food in the 

family especially when they are 

the bread winners of their 

households. The most hit are 

mainly the women and children 

who depend largely on these 

kind of providers-turned-

dependents and liabilities. 

 

Another effect of developing a new taste 

for highly processed foods against other 

highly nutritious native ones is that not 

minding that those native ones before 

the boko haram destabilization of the 

people and their means of livelihood 

were richer in content, more accessible 

and cheap because they were produced 

mainly by the subsistent farmers, many 

of whom are the today idps, is that when 

aid will cease, they may not be able to 

access the new foods easily again. The 

result as already observed by Nwosumba 

(2012) is that the development of 

Western consumerism habit makes the 

people dependent on emulating Western 

lifestyle and eating patterns, a point that 

Stevens (1979) agrees with by adding 

that possible direct effects of food aid on 

the receivers is the introduction of alien 

tastes, undermining of local reliance and 

health hazards. The resultant effect is 

that the person(s) in order to meet up 

with the new taste can do anything to 

maintain the status quo just like most 

female students of higher institutions in 

Nigeria who after tasting high living 

standard ostentatiously imbibed through 

following “sugar daddies” and money-

bags resort to sex-hawking, armed 

robbery, petty thievery, menial jobs and 

all worth not in order to stay afloat.  

 

This point is in line with Uduaghan 

(2015) revelation that most sex hawkers 

especially students give food insecurity 

as one of the reasons for doing the dirty, 

morally tasking job. In the end most 

people in this line of life live like drug 

addicts that hardly survive without 

taking drugs. The result of the addiction 

is one disease or the other especially 

HIV/AIDS and this leads to further 

impoverishment and worsening 

household food security. 

 Where women participate in 

agricultural production, food 

security at household and 

community level is being 

threatened. All dimensions of 

food security-availability, 

stability, access and use of food 

– are affected where the 

prevalence of HIV/AIDS is high 

(Clover, 2003:10). 

 

Farming skills as a consequence of this 

are likely to be lost, agricultural 

development to be derailed and rural 

livelihoods largely disintegrated. As a 

result, just as Clover proves in the case 

of some countries in Southern Africa, 

productive capacity to work the land will 

likely decline and household earnings 

likely to shrink. The UN estimates that 

9.6% of Zimbabwe’s agricultural labour 

force was lost in 2000, Malawi losing 

5.8% (Financial Times, 2002) because 

of the foregoing reason. The effects of 

all this on households in these countries 

are debilitating as most extended 

families struggle to cope with the 

burden. Children are the most hit as most 



 

 

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of them suffer malnutrition. Buttressing 

this fact, Jere (2007), taking facts from 

Malawi’s Demographic and Health 

Surveys (DHS), reveals that close to half 

of all children under the age of five are 

stunted in growth. Northeast idps’ 

rehabilitators and the idps themselves 

should note this in order to avoid it. 

In another development, due to the 

impact of food aid on food markets of 

most African recipient countries, this 

paper foresees the danger food aid 

portends for the Northeast idps’ 

household food security. This is due to 

the attachment of politics to anything 

that pertains to food in Africa. The 

biggest problem food aid creates for the 

people where it is used to cushion the 

effects of food insecurity during crisis 

period is serving as a disincentive for 

local food producers (who, in the case of 

Northeast Nigeria are most of the idps) 

by flooding the market and depressing 

prices. This claim is insinuating 

however that because food aid is 

provided in kind and because most 

recipients produce food themselves it 

will have a certain set of effects in 

addition to any that may arise from the 

circumstances of recipient countries 

(Stevens, 1979). More so, as Stevens 

argues while it is true that food aid must 

react in some way on food production in 

recipient countries, it is not clear that it 

is so different from other modes of aid. 

Taking foreign aid as a whole as an 

example, this quotation from former 

President John Kennedy of America 

aptly proves that no foreign aid is short 

of propagating US national interest to 

the letter that is, in the case of US 

involvement. Foreign aid is “a method 

by which the United States maintains a 

position of influence and control around 

the world…” (Magdoff, 1968:117). This 

is not limited to the US alone however. 

 

Thus, while it is true that food aid may 

compete with the recipient’s domestic 

agriculture as Stevens (1979) further 

argues, similar considerations apply to 

say, technical assistance supplied under 

financial aid: under this type of 

assistance rich country personnel 

(arguably in surplus supply) are sent to 

poor countries where they may compete 

with local people, sap the government 

will be adopt realistic manpower 

policies, and introduce Western tastes 

unsuited to local conditions. This 

approach likely depresses the income of 

those involved in local industry and as 

such portends danger for the Northeast 

Nigeria idps who are already undergoing 

rehabilitation processes which are aimed 

at resettling them in their communities. 

A case to look at is the DRN study 

carried out in Malawi in 2003 which 

assessed the effects of the WFP 

interventions in the country following 

the 2002/2003 food crisis. The study as 

revealed by Jere (2007), reveals that the 

availability of free humanitarian food 

supplies reduced demand for 

commercial maize (a major income 

earning product of Malawians) thereby 

resulting in unintended excess stocks of 

commercial maize, a situation that 

eventually exerted a dampening effect 

on consumer prices and producer prices 

for the next harvest. The Nigerian 

government, Northeastern states and 



 

 

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their local governments and other 

stakeholders in the Northeastern Nigeria 

project should play the politics of food 

aid in that region with caution if they are 

sincerely sympathetic of the idps’ 

household food security situation as it is 

now because the whole analysis done in 

this paper tend to reinvent the 

philosophy that guides the 

understanding of North-South politics in 

international relations. 

 

Conclusion/Recommendations 

From all indications, food aid politics is 

a big challenge in Africa’s attempt to 

have food security and as such tends to 

pose as a major stumbling block in the 

rehabilitation project going on in 

Northeast Nigeria. While it could be 

argued that food security politics is 

global in nature, Africa for years has 

received more of its negative impacts 

and that goes a long way to justify the 

fear this paper nurses pertaining to the 

nexus between food aid politics and the 

household food security of the idps in 

Northeast Nigeria. Food aid in Africa, 

no matter what may be seen as its 

positive impact namely; intervening in 

food crisis situations for humanitarian 

purposes, has largely exacerbated the 

household food insecurity of many poor, 

vulnerable and displaced persons in 

different parts of Africa. To this end, this 

paper conceives food aid as being 

particularly pernicious since it exists 

largely to help sustain inefficient 

agricultural policies in Africa and to 

increase the leverage that its donors 

exert on the peripherized people and 

countries, and more so, for not only 

failing to benefit the recipient 

adequately to compensate for these costs 

but for actually putting the farmers out 

of business leading them more 

especially their women and children to 

adopting exotic tastes that can be 

satisfied mainly by imports, a condition 

that leads them to do warranted and 

unwarranted things that can help them 

sustain the newly developed Western 

consumerism habit. 

 

Based on all these, this paper 

recommends that governments (federal, 

state and local), NGOS and other 

participants in the rehabilitation project 

should avoid muddling through once 

grants-in-aid come, they should be more 

people-oriented, focused, less corrupt 

and result oriented. To achieve this, the 

aid attracted should be used efficiently 

and sustainably. Functional markets 

should be built where the former-idps on 

leaving the camps can sell their produce 

and buyers have access to the food they 

need. This will largely address the 

problem of lack of access to food. This 

also shall enable the government and its 

partners to improve meaningfully the 

household food security of the idps 

when they are resettled. In the long run, 

the idps should be dissuaded from 

relying on food aid as a capacity 

building means through which they hope 

to have long term household food 

security. The idps should through skill 

acquisition programmes organized for 

them by the rehabilitators be thought 

that food aid as a free gift has a lot of 

damaging consequences some of which 

have been raised in this paper. It has not 



 

 

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given sustainable household food 

security to any African idps and may 

possibly not do so in Nigeria. As a 

matter of fact, the chief recommendation 

is that while the Nigerian government 

must not maintain the business as usual 

trend, efforts should be made to put 

Western education at the centre of the 

rehabilitation project in order to create a 

new sense of pride in the idps that 

begging is psychologically low class and 

so erodes the self-esteem of the 

dependent class. What this means is that 

through education the idps especially the 

women and children should be thought 

how to be self-reliant through 

honourable means of pursuit of life 

endeavour while in the camp and after 

they had left the camp. 

 

 

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