V.P Osinbajo: 9.3 Million Students now beneficiaries of FG’s Feeding Programme

Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on Tuesday said children benefiting from the Federal Government’s School Feeding Programme have increased to 9.3 million across the country.

Osinbajo made this known in Ado Ekiti while inaugurating the Homegrown School Feeding Programme at St Michael’s Primary School, Ajilosun.

According to him, Ekiti has become the 31st state to cue into the programme which is now in 56,506 primary schools across the country.

He also said 190,000 farmers now earn a living through the programme by supplying items needed to prosecute the programme while 767 cows and 7.3 million eggs are consumed weekly.

The vice president said the programme, apart from shoring up school enrollment, had given a boost to job creation and helped in  poverty reduction.

He added that the policy, which he described as a flagship of the All Progressives Congress- led government, remained one of the four cardinal objectives of the empowerment and social investment policy of  the present government.

Osinbajo also lauded  Gov. Kayode Fayemi of Ekiti for keying into the programme, saying it would not only increase enrollment in schools but also ensure regular attendance.

Osinbajo maintained that the policy had also helped in improving the capacity of  some  people, especially the food vendors, to enable them to feed their families.

“Some asked how many jobs will this create? The benefits are unimaginable. But we assure that we are going to increase the scope of all our social investment programmes, including tradermoni  in the next level, ” he said.

Fayemi had earlier described the policy as “very significant in the lives of the people”, and commended the Federal Government for the initiative.

He said the programme was an  initiative of President Muhammadu Buhari, but was being  anchored through the office of  the Vice President .

Fayemi stressed that the state under him places a high premium on the policy because it was addressing some of the problems confronting the vulnerable.

Fayemi said that 2,000 vendors had already been employed to supply food in the 905 primary schools across the state, while 75,000 pupils in Primary One to Primary Three would benefit.