The Minister of Humanitarian Affair, Disaster Management and Social Development Sadiya Umar Farouq has said that 197,140 pupils benefit from federal Government School Feeding in Abia States.
Represented by Ngozi Chukwude, on the ongoing biometric capturing and enumeration of benefitting pupils and schools in Abia.
She said the exercise was designed to enable the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development to “verify, validate and analyse the data from Abia”.
“The essence of the capturing and enumeration of pupils and schools was to ensure transparency, accountability and sustainability of the programme,” she said.
“This is part of the FMHADMSD mandate of striving to ensure that every Nigerian in need receives the support they need through our social protection mechanisms. So as you can see the NSIPs are designed for people who need that additional support and boost to ensure that they can participate fully in our collective nation building efforts”.
We therefore call on parents, school headmasters, cooks , traditional and community leaders to support our efforts in this exercise for the benefit of the pupils who are eligible for these free meals.
The Minister said the ministry would in October capture the schools that were missed out at the first instance in order to upgrade the number of schools from Abia.
She also said that the success of the programme had been emperically proved by the increase in enrollment in public primary schools across the country.
The Programme Manager, Abia School Feeding Programme, Mr Gabriel Ahuronye, who was part of the exercise, told newsmen that Abia was getting N450 million monthly from the federal government for the programme.
A cross-section of the teachers in the schools lauded the initiative, describing it as commendable and impactful on the pupils, their parents and benefitting schools.
The Headmistress of Ahieke Community Primary School, Mrs Ezioma Nwachukwu, and a teacher, Princess Chukwuma, said the programme had shored up enrollment in public primary schools.
“We recorded substantial increase in the number of enrollment here, courtesy of the programme.
“They are always enthusiastic to come to school once they remember the meal,” Nwachukwu said.
They both encouraged the federal and state governments to sustain the programme.