Nigeria — COVID-19 Situational Analysis 6: North-central and North-west (March 2022)

Round 6 of the COVID-19 Situation Analysis is based on the assessment of knowledge, practice and impact of the pandemic on internally displaced persons (IDPs) in conflict-affected communities in the geopolitical zones north-central and north-west Nigeria. Conducted by the Displacement Tracking Matrix (DTM) unit of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), the report covers the period between 16 November and 30 December 2021 and reflects trends from the states Benue, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Nasarawa, Plateau, Sokoto and Zamfara.

The first assessment was conducted in July 2020, four months after the first case of COVID-19 was reported in Nigeria. In this report, the results are presented from the 6th round of DTM assessments. The assessments were conducted in 1,654 locations – which is a decrease by 10 locations compared to the 5th round when 1,664 locations were covered. These sites included 97 camps and camp-like settings and 1,557 locations where IDPs were residing among host communities, representing a total of 969,757 IDPs in 157,519 households. The state with the highest number of locations assessed was Katsina State with a total of 297 locations (18%), followed by Kaduna with 262 locations (16%) and Benue with 235 locations (14%). In contrast to Round 5, Zamfara and not Sokoto was the state where the least number of locations were assessed with 126 sites (8%).

As in other similar assessments, staff from IOM, NEMA, SEMAs and the Nigerian Red Cross Society collated the data in the field, including baseline information at Local Government Area and ward-levels. 

A total of 95,369 respondents – or 10% of the total IDP population in north-central and north-west Nigeria were interviewed on a range of COVID-19 related indicators. Key informant interviews and focus group discussions were the primary methods used for the assessment and the findings were corroborated with physical on-ground observations.