How a Distant War Made Food Unaffordable in Sokoto

In the quiet town of Kware in Nigeria's northwestern Sokoto state, 18-month-old Maryam Aminu’s child was diagnosed with malnutrition for the second time this year. Her husband, Shehu, lost his job as a taxi driver in February when the retail price of petrol more than doubled — from 800 naira (US$0.58) to 1,400 naira (US$1.02) per litre — making his work impossible. The family, already living in an unvarnished two-bedroom home, now struggles to afford more than pap and rice. Maryam’s anger was aimed squarely at a conflict thousands of miles away: the Iran war that has shut the Strait of Hormuz, the chokepoint for a fifth of the world’s oil.

Across northern Nigeria, health workers report a disturbing wave of children relapsing into malnutrition. At a single hospital in Sokoto, records shared with the Associated Press show nearly 40 children who had previously been treated for malnutrition are now back under care, with many more cases unrecorded. The closure of the Strait sent a global fuel shock rippling through economies, and nowhere has the blow landed harder than on the 139 million Nigerians the World Bank this week described as poor or vulnerable to poverty.

UNICEF’s latest projection is stark: if the war continues, as many as 23.4 million additional children worldwide could fall into monetary poverty by year end, with at least 80% of them in Africa and Asia. “Children are paying the price for the escalating conflict in the Middle East, including children far beyond the region,” said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell during a visit to Sokoto. The fuel shock has also driven up fertiliser costs, threatening the planting season for mostly farming communities already hemmed in by banditry and Islamist insurgencies.

From Hormuz to Hunger: The Economic Chain Hitting Nigerian Children

The Oil Shock’s Rapid Pass-Through to Nigerian Consumers

Nigeria’s fuel market was fully deregulated three years ago when President Bola Tinubu removed subsidies and devalued the naira. This means domestic pump prices track global crude oil benchmarks with little lag. When the Iran war closed the Strait of Hormuz in mid-2025, the supply disruption immediately lifted international oil prices, and Nigeria’s petrol cost surged from 800 to 1,400 naira per litre between February and April 2026. The mechanism is direct: every dollar increase in global crude translates into higher naira prices at the pump, hitting transportation, food distribution, and household budgets. In a country where 63% of the population is multidimensionally poor, that price shock wipes out already thin margins of survival.

A Double Blow for Northern Farming Communities

The war’s impact reaches beyond fuel. Fertiliser, which is heavily dependent on natural gas and oil feedstocks, has become more expensive and less available, according to aid workers. For northern Nigeria’s agrarian belt, this coincides with a fragile planting season. Many farmers cannot access their fields due to regular attacks by bandit groups and expanding Islamist militant territories. With higher input costs and physical insecurity, food production risks collapsing further, deepening the malnutrition cycle. As SBM Intelligence partner Ikemesit Effiong told AP, “This distant war offers no relief for the north’s vulnerable.”

The Looming Human Capital Catastrophe

Beyond immediate hunger, the crisis threatens to stunt an entire generation. UNICEF’s Russell warned that children in poor households are more likely to suffer long-term developmental damage and are less likely to stay in school because parental financial stress forces them into labour or early marriage. The World Bank’s new poverty tally of 139 million vulnerable Nigerians underlines how little resilience exists. When a global oil shock hits an already deeply impoverished region, the effects compound quickly. Health workers in Sokoto are now treating children whose families, like the Aminus, simply cannot afford even a stable supply of staple foods, let alone a nutritious diet. Without a rapid infusion of support, the legacy of the Iran war will be measured not in barrels but in lost futures.

What Nigeria and the World Can Do to Stem the Malnutrition Surge

  • Scale emergency nutrition programmes immediately: Health authorities in Sokoto and neighbouring states must ramp up treatment capacity for the rising number of relapse cases — the single facility that documented 40 children re-admitted since February is a canary in the coal mine. Mobile clinics and community-based management of acute malnutrition can reach families displaced by insecurity.
  • Deploy a time-bound, targeted fuel subsidy for the most vulnerable: With pump prices at 1,400 naira per litre, the federal government can use the social register developed under the World Bank-supported cash transfer programme to issue transport and cooking-fuel vouchers. This would temporarily cushion households like the Aminus whose incomes evaporated when petrol prices spiked, without returning to a universal, fiscally ruinous subsidy.
  • Front-load fertiliser and seed support for the planting season: State governments and international donors should provide subsidised inputs to farmers in the northwest, where fertiliser prices have surged. Linking this distribution to security escorts could allow planting to proceed, averting a sharp fall in local food production later in the year.
  • Fund UNICEF’s emergency appeal without delay: Russell’s visit to Sokoto signals that the agency’s West African operations are stretched thin. Donor countries must urgently fulfil pledges to enable the cash transfers, nutritional supplements, and surveillance systems UNICEF needs to prevent 23.4 million children from sliding into monetary poverty globally, with Nigeria at the epicentre.