MERCY EKE,
takes a deep look into the funding, management and impact of the Federal Government of Nigeria’s National Home Grown School Feeding Programme which was launched in 2016 by the President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration.
The National Home Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP) was created to address hunger and malnutrition among Nigerian children, enhance school enrolment, and increase agricultural production and economic growth. The programme is a N70 per day school feeding programme that aims to improve the health and educational outcomes of public primary school pupils. The NHGSFP was first introduced by the Federal Government in 2016 and barely seven years into its implementation, nothing much seems to have taken off the ground with names of the benefiting public primary schools still largely unknown while the number of pupils covered under the scheme remains a mirage, though the federal government claims the programme is currently feeding over 9.9 million pupils in 35 states and the FCT.
The Federal Government of Nigeria, through the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, claimed to have spent 96.6 billion Naira on the National Home Grown School Feeding programme, within a period of 9 months, spanning from 2020-2021 and representing an average of more than 10 billion Naira monthly. Surprisingly, this was at a time all schools were under lockdown as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and the pupils were at home.
In view of holding government to account, a human rights group, “LAWYERS OF CONSCIENCE” wrote to the ministry demanding full disclosure of the ministry’s spending as it relates to the National Home Grown School Feeding Programme. According to the leader of the group, Nkereuwem Udofia Akpan, the Ministry is yet to respond to their demand. Other groups and stakeholders have also faulted the federal governments claim on the NHGSFP.
Efforts from Gender Strategy Advancement Internationals’ team to obtain necessary data on the number of school children and number public primary schools in the FCT that are currently benefiting from the National Home Grown School Feeding programme has been unsuccessful. Similarly, efforts by the reporter to obtain data on the NHGSFP from the Federal Capital Territory’s Universal Basic Education Commission (UBEC) met a brick wall. Staff at the agency were not forthcoming with their body language suggesting they had something to hide from the public or the facts about the NHGSFP are to be kept secret.
Further investigation into the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development reveal lack of transparency in the management and implementation of the programme. A staff at the ministry categorically revealed that she has the list and details of the FCT programme but cannot disclose it due to, according to her, the sensitivity of the project.
By probing further, a staff of the Ministry Of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, who pleaded anonymous, gave up the names of two schools in the FCT which he claimed were beneficiaries of the School Feeding programme. However, our investigation revealed that these said schools are both located in Nyanya, a suburb on the outskirts of FCT and one of the schools has never been visited by the programme team neither was the school benefiting from the programme as claimed. While the second school has had the programme’s sub-coordinator visited for just six days throughout the whole term and nothing more since then. According to the teacher in charge of coordinating the children for the school feeding, the caterers had complained that the usual money disbursed for purchasing the food items was slashed, and above all, the hike in prices of food stuff made it difficult to continue. So the programme has long ceased in the school.
COMMUNITY ECONOMY
The key objective of the NHGSFP is to stimulate the community’s economy level through patronizing local farmers and food vendors within the community. We spoke with some of the farmers and food vendors in the community but they had no knowledge or idea of the programme neither have they been visited or patronized by the coordinators or implementers of the programme.
Efforts were made to interact with the community leader of Nyanya who was not interested in being drawn into discussions about the programme which he termed as a mere government propaganda designed to serve as slush fund for top government officials.
CONCLUSION
For many Nigerians, the National Home Grown School Feeding programme is yet another pipe line and source of slush fund for unpatriotic officials who continue to take advantage of inadequate control measures to subvert government programmes and policies, no matter how well intended they may be.
From inception, the NHGSFP had the core objectives of increasing school enrolments, participation and completion, improvement of nutritional status of beneficiaries, creating employment and stimulation of the local economy through the school feeding value chain. A programme of this magnitude and overreaching objective is expected to be transparent, but the current National Home Grown School Feeding Programme is far from being transparent, and the claims and figures brandished by government agencies are far from the truth.
This report was supported by GSAI and WSCIJ
