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No fewer than 7.7 million students and 46,000 schools across 24 states of the federation are currently benefitting from National Home Grown Feeding Programme (NHGFP).
The programme is also expected to be extended to additional 12 states in the next few months, according to Abimbola Adesanmi, NHGFP National Manager who spoke with BusinessDay at the sideline of the two-day workshop for FCT stakeholders.
Adesanmi, added that total number of 3.2 million eggs, 50 tons of fishes; 255 cattles slaughtered and millions of tons of local rice were consumed across the 24 states so far.
In his remarks, Ismaeel Ahmed, Senior Special Adviser to the Vice President on Social Investment noted that 30,000 chickens are required to produce all the eggs requirement for the beneficiaries.
He expressed optimism that the National Home Grown Feeding Programme will provide opportunities not only for poultry farmers but private sector, just as he warned against politicization of the scheme.
Speaking earlier, Mariam Uwais, Senior Special Adviser to the President on Social Investment disclosed that the scheme will directly empower thousands of Nigerians engaged in the scheme including poultry associations, cooks as the money will be paid directly to their accounts.
According to her, the cooks and other suppliers are to be working within the communities where the schools are located, adding that no money should be removed as supply during the implementation of the scheme.
Uwais who expressed the need to share experience garned from various states where the programme are currently being implemented.
She explained that the office of the National Home Grown School Feeding Programme has to liaise with various State Universal Basic Education Boards to generate the population of beneficiaries.
While declaring the stakeholders’ workshop open, Muhammad Bello, FCT Minister expresses satisfaction through the successes recorded in the implementation of other components of Social Investment programme including: N-Power-N-Teach, N-Agro, N-Health, N-Build Government Enterprise Empowerment Programme (GEEP), State Operations Coordinating Unit (SOCU), State Cash Transfer Unit (SCTU), among others.
According to him, a total number of 7,616 Abuja residents who benefitted from the N-Power Programme in 2016 have graduated, while 8,369 prospective beneficiaries have gone through physical verification for 2017, are awaiting deployment to their various duty posts.
“As you are all aware, the Home Grown School Feeding is to provide food for all public primary school pupils in primary 1 – 3 in Nigeria using food produced and purchased within the country. This will not only add value chain to the local farmers, the food vendors, but will also increase children enrolment in schools and retention.
“The FCT started its survey by inviting the National Office of the Home Grown School Feeding Programme for an interactive session on how best the FCT can key into the the programme successfully,” the Minister said.
In th bid to ensure successfully implementation of the National Home Grown School Feeding Programme in the capital city, Bello explained that the FCT has established the offices of State Operations’ Coordinating Unit and State Cash Transfer Unit in charge of cash transfer to the very poor and vulnerable people across the six Area Councils.
Bello who was represented by Oladimeji Hassan, FCT Secretary, Social Development Secretariat, added that the administration also recorded tremendous success in the GEEP programme by attaining 89% of the soft loan granted to the residents.
