By Mercy Gadia Adi
The Vice President, Kashim Shettima, will on Monday declare open the three-day National Summit on Nutrition and Food Security with the theme: ‘Curbing malnutrition and food insecurity through effective synergy’, organized by the House of Representatives, in Abuja.
The Summit is scheduled for Monday, 8th July to Wednesday, 10th July 2025 at the National Assembly complex, Abuja.
Chairman, House Committee on Nutrition and Food Security, Hon. Chike Okafor, disclosed that the heads of Security Agencies will appear before the Summit on the second day to discuss the impact of insecurity on food production.
“You can’t talk about food security without also talking about the fact that today the farmers cannot go to the farm because of insecurity, We are insisting that they (Security Agencies) come and tell Nigeria what they are doing to ensure that these farmers go into the farm without being harassed or without being killed or molested by anybody,”Okafor said.
Some of the stakeholders expected at the Summit include Chairman, APC Governors’ Forum, Governor Hope Uzodimma; Governor Mohammed Bago of Niger State; Members of the National Assembly and State Houses of Assembly; Key Federal and State Ministries, Departments, and Agencies; Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON); Development Partners, including UNICEF, FAO, WFP, GAIN, CS-SUNN, and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; Civil Society Organisations and key actors in the Organized Private Sector.
Hon. Okafor explained that the objectives of the Summit were designed as a multi-sectoral and multi-stakeholder engagement platform.
“Despite decades of national policies and sectoral programmes aimed at improving nutrition and food systems, Nigeria continues to grapple with alarming rates of malnutrition and food insecurity, Children under the age of 5, pregnant and nursing mothers, and vulnerable populations in rural areas bear the brunt of this crisis,”he said.
The Summit is expected to achieve several concrete outcomes, including strengthened legislative frameworks for nutrition and food security at federal and state levels; improved budgetary appropriations and tracking of nutrition funding; clear recommendations for policy reform and inter-agency coordination; enhanced synergy between development partners and legislative stakeholders; and a roadmap for effective domestication and implementation of nutrition policies by State Houses of Assembly.
As the Summit approaches, Hon. Okafor is calling on the media, subnational legislatures, development partners, and private sector actors to play a key role in addressing the issue of malnutrition and food insecurity in Nigeria.
“We call on the media, as critical partners, to amplify the discourse and outcomes of the Summit and help mobilise national awareness and accountability,” he said.
Chairman, House Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Rep. Akin Rotimi, applauded the leadership role played by Hon. Okafor towards the establishment of dedicated Standing Committees on Nutrition and Food Security across the 36 State Houses of Assembly. “Nutrition and Food Security is being approached holistically, You’ll be able to see from here the context that it’s a holistic approach to addressing food security, low investment in that sector and so many other things,” Rotimi said.