Former Vice President Atiku Abubakar has said Nigeria has transformed from being the “giant of Africa” into a “hunger hot spot,” following a United Nations warning that about 35 million Nigerians could face acute hunger in the coming months.

In a statement issued by his spokesperson Phrank Shaibu on Monday, Atiku described the projection as evidence of a “catastrophic failure” of the current administration.

He said the UN report should not be treated as another statistic for public debate and then forgotten.

“This is not just another alarming statistic to be debated on television panels and forgotten by the next news cycle. This is a human tragedy of terrifying proportions,” he said.

Atiku added that the situation reflects a crisis affecting more people than the population of many African countries.

“This is not a famine caused by drought. This is not a war-induced collapse. This is not an earthquake or a natural catastrophe. This is man-made suffering,” he stated.

The warning comes amid official data from the National Bureau of Statistics showing that Nigeria’s headline inflation and food inflation dropped in April to 15.69 percent and 16.06 percent respectively, according to the Consumer Price Index report.