Unsettled Issues On Schools Feeding Programme

By Chuks Ekpeneru

The conception of the Schools Feeding Programme has been lauded across several sections of the polity even including among some bitter enemies of the present administration.

However, when the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Umar-Farouq, announced that the Federal Government had finalised plans with state governments to start feeding schoolchildren in their respective homes.

She was quoted as saying the government had overhauled the school feeding programme in a way to ensure that schoolchildren were fed at home despite the lockdown.

That claim has, however, raised serious eyebrows from across the polity.

Former Deputy National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Chief Olabode George, faulted the continuation of the programme describing it as absurd.

“It is a redundant, unworkable palliative. In a nation where there is no standard numbering of houses, how do you get the food to the beneficiaries? This is more than laughable. It is tragic,” he added.

SERAP, meanwhile has asked the FG and CBN to disclose information on the details of the implementation of the school feeding programme during the lockdown and closure of schools in several states where the programme is being implemented.

This includes the number of children that have so far benefited from the programme and the names of the communities since the lockdown and closure of schools, as well as the number of cooks engaged.

Not to be left out, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) described the programme as a huge scam and a scheme by the All Progressives Congress (APC) leaders and some officials in the government to siphon a targeted N13.5 billion public funds to finance their lifestyle.

The party further said the use of innocent school children as cover to steal and funnel not less than N679 million daily to private purses was sacrilegious, wicked and completely unpardonable.

While the African Action Congress (AAC) claimed it was a scam and a drainpipe to siphon taxpayers’ money in order to enrich unscrupulous Nigerians, the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria ( HURIWA) alleged that the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs would only be feeding ghost pupils.

Umar-Farouq has, however, denied the claim of a daily expenditure of N679 million describing it as far-fetched.

The minister who has pledged to render account of her stewardship, however, has as yet to explain how much is being spent daily on the programme and the specifics of where the programme is being carried out and the beneficiaries.

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