The President Muhammadu Buhari regime said it spent about $100 million in feeding 10 million Nigerian children under the National School Feeding Programme. This was part of efforts to eliminate the scourge of child labour in the country.
Chris Ngige, Minister of Labour and Employment, said this when he received the U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria, Mary Leornard and officials of the Department of State, on a courtesy visit on Friday in Abuja.
This is contained in a statement issued by Olajide Oshundun, Head of Press and Public Relations in the ministry.
Mr Ngige said that the Nigerian government had introduced the school feeding programme under its social security programme, to lure children engaged in child labour, back to school.
He said the federal government also introduced social protection programmes to fight poverty, which is the major contributory factor to the prevalence of child labour in Nigeria.
According to him, “we have introduced the National School Feeding Programme under our social security, to lure children back to school.
“As of today, we are feeding 10 million children across the country. We have spent nearly $100 million on this.
“We have also taken more schools into the areas prone to child labour and made education free in the whole country through the Universal Basic Education and the Child Rights Acts.”
Reacting via his verified social Facebook page, the convener of Concerned Nigerians, Mr Deji Adeyanju, alluded that $95m of the said expended money was embezzled.
Mr Adeyanju has often criticized the President Mahammadu Buhari’s anti-corruption approach, describing it as a brazen show of shame and deceit, and a corruption-friendly government. On several posts on his verified Facebook account, he has lamented about the worsening state of the country and the exorbitant rate of corruption by government officials since the APC government led by President Mahammadu Buhari came to power in 2015.
Also recall that in 2019 Mr. Adeyanju filed a formal petition before the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission demanding for the investigation of the appearance of bullion vans in the house of the national leader of the All Progressives Congress, Bola Tinubu, on the eve of the 2019 presidential elections
