Confusion over Buhari’s Free Meal for School Children

Vice-President Prof. Yemi Osinbajo on Tuesday said the President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration would soon commence giving primary school children free meals.

This is after the All Progressives Congress (APC) earlier denied its campaign billboard which stated that the party will provide one meal a day for school children.

However, Osinbajo at the 45th Annual Accountants Conference in Abuja, said that the the free feeding scheme was a core project of the federal government that would in turn yield about 1.14 million jobs and increase in food production.

He said the government would be investing more in the people, education and job creation.

Speaking on the topic “Repositioning Nigeria for Sustainable Development: From Rhetoric to Performance,” Osinbajo said that the multiplier effects of the introduction of the school feeding scheme would help to create 1.14 million new jobs; increase food production by up to 530,000 metric tonnes per annum, as well as attract fresh investments up to N980bn.

He said, “One of the most important interventions required in the education sector is capacity building to improve teacher quality.

“This programme is intended to drive teachers’ capacity development; boost basic education; attract talents to the teaching profession. Better educated population increases economic potential for productivity.”

“The All Progressives Congress has made a commitment to provide one-meal-a-day for all primary school students; that would create jobs in agriculture, including poultry, catering and delivery services.”

The vice president decried the high rate of employment in the country in spite of the fact that Nigeria had recorded high oil prices, Gross Domestic Product and foreign reserves during the previous administrations.

Same day, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, national publicity secretary of the APC, denied the party’s campaign billboard which stated that APC  will provide one meal a day for school children.

The billboard, which bears large portraits of the then candidate Muhammadu Buhari and his running mate, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, and three bold faces of pupils in school uniforms, has a banner that reads in capital letters: “ONE MEAL A DAY.”

Alhaji Mohammed said the billboard was not authorized by his party.

‘’Anybody can produce a billboard and display. We know nothing about it’’, Lai Mohammed said.