Originally published in 1981, this book provided the first concise and integrated account of the Nigerian crisis and uncovered the basic cause of the increasing vulnerability of the Nigerian rural poor during the 1970s to the effects of drought, in order to show the lessons of the crisis and how they could be translated into medium-term action. The author argued that an analysis of the causes and impact of the drought and famine disaster of the seventies could offer useful clues to the policy orientations necessary to avert a protracted food crisis in the region

G. Jan Van Apeldoorn was Senior Research Fellow at the Reformed University of Amsterdam.