On countless farmlands now overrun by bandits, crops rot unharvested while families once self-reliant scramble for survival.
From the North to the Middle Belt, insecurity is ripping through the economic fabric of communities, driving Nigeria into a dangerous new poverty spiral.
Nigerians are worried that insecurity is fueling a new poverty crisis in the country by disrupting livelihoods, displacing populations, destroying infrastructure, and creating a cyclical relationship where poverty and insecurity feed each other.
This happens as conflicts and crime prevent farming and business, forcing people to flee and become impoverished, while the resulting economic hardship, displaced populations, and social unrest in turn increase vulnerability to crime and conflict.
Friday Erhabor, director of media and strategies at Marklenez Limited, said because the country is largely an agrarian economy and the insecurity especially in the northern part has made it difficult for farmers to cultivate their land.
“For the farmers, they have been denied access to their means of livelihood. That erodes their income.
“On the other hand, because farmers are not given an enabling environment to farm properly, there is food inflation which also erodes the purchasing power of Nigerians and consequently increases their poverty,” he said.
According to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS), “Cost of food in Nigeria increased 13.12 percent in October of 2025 over the same month in the previous year.
“Food Inflation in Nigeria averaged 14.14 percent from 1996 until 2025, reaching an all-time high of 40.87 percent in June of 2024.”
Erhabor called on the government to overhaul Nigeria’s security architecture.
“States should be empowered to have state police or state security outfits to localise the fight against insecurity,” he noted.
Ibukun Bankole, a media expert, and the CEO of JEN, an initiative group empowering youth, said the reality is that insecurity in Nigeria has gone beyond a security challenge and it is now a major driver of poverty.
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“When businesses shut down because of fear of attacks, jobs are lost and families are thrown into hardship. In many cases, breadwinners are killed, kidnapped, or displaced, leaving dependents without support.
“This cycle keeps pushing more households below the poverty line.
We see it clearly in the economy because land that should normally appreciate in value is now depreciating in conflict-prone areas because people are abandoning their farms and properties,” she said.
Besides, Bankole emphasised that because of the insecurity, schools are closing down in unsafe regions, denying children access to education, while health facilities are either destroyed or inaccessible.
“These are critical indices showing how insecurity is eroding both livelihoods and social infrastructure and ultimately keeping many Nigerians poor,” she noted.
To break this cycle, she said that Nigeria must strengthen its security architecture with community-based policing and intelligence-driven operations, which she believe already exists.
This, she said, is because Nigerians have witnessed alleged allegations by military officers on the frontline claiming that they are being told to stand down instead of fighting and killing these terrorists.
The security crisis in Nigeria is having its toll on the economy, which has led to a surge in the cost of living and has brought untold hard times to the education sector as well.
According to the NBS 2022 “Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI)” survey, 63 percent of Nigerians, about 133 million people, are multidimensionally poor.
Of that number, 86 million live in the north, while about 47 million live in the south, highlighting how poverty is concentrated in Nigeria’s historically most insecure or conflict-prone regions.
Poverty is higher in rural areas, with about 72 percent of rural Nigerians living in poverty, compared to about 42 percent in urban areas; rural areas are more exposed to insecurity, disruption of agriculture, and displacement.
The survey shows wide variation by state: for instance, poverty incidence ranges from as low as 27 percent in some states to as high as 91 percent in others, such as Sokoto State, many of the worst-off states are those most affected by banditry, insurgency or communal conflict.
According to a World Bank report in 2024, about 129 million Nigerians live below the national poverty line, a sharp increase compared to prior years.
Insecurity is a key driver of poverty increase in Nigeria by disrupting livelihoods, agricultural production, and economic activity—especially in the north and conflict-affected regions.
Poverty rates have worsened sharply in recent years, coinciding with heightened insecurity coupled with inflation and economic shocks.
Available records show that Nigeria’s extreme poverty rate increased from about 40 percent in 2019 to over 60 percent by 2025, according to World Bank and NBS-based projections.
A recent Benue State report shows a one percent increase in insecurity corresponding with decreases in crop and livestock output of about 0.2 percent to 0.3 percent undermining income and food security.
