Nigeria May Need N1 Trillion Yearly to Expand School Feeding Programme, Says VP Shettima
Abuja – Vice President Kashim Shettima has stated that Nigeria may require a yearly budget of N1 trillion to sustain nationwide coverage of the home-grown school feeding programme. Speaking at the National Policy Forum on the Institutionalisation and Implementation of the Renewed Hope National Home Grown School Feeding Programme, organized by ActionAid Nigeria, Shettima emphasized that funding the initiative is not a cost but a strategic investment in nation-building with economic and security benefits.
Represented at the forum by the Special Adviser to the President on Economic Affairs, Dr. Tope Fasua, Shettima highlighted the government’s commitment to ensuring no Nigerian child learns on an empty stomach and no local farmer is excluded from national prosperity. He also recalled the recent launch of the Alternative Education and Renewed Hope School Feeding Project, targeting out-of-school and highly vulnerable children, with the aim of reaching up to 20 million beneficiaries by 2026.
Shettima stressed that school feeding should be viewed as a national security intervention, warning that poverty, hunger, and lack of opportunity can foster extremism and conflict in fragile regions.
In a related development, human rights lawyer Femi Falana (SAN) urged the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to transfer N32.7 billion and $445,000 recovered from the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management, and Social Development to the National Social Investment Programme Agency (NSIPA). Falana called on federal, state, and local governments to fund social investment programmes, noting that such a move would help alleviate the suffering of Nigeria’s over 133 million multidimensionally poor citizens.
