How has education fared under the present administration, which celebrated its third anniversary on Tuesday? Nigerians give their verdicts on some of its intervention programmes, particularly its feeding of pupils and N-Power. KOFOWOROLA BELO-OSAGIE reports.
WHEN he assumed office in 2015, President Muhammadu Buhari promised to feed pupils and provide jobs for youths. This gave birth to the Home Grown School Feeding Programme (HGSFP) and the N-Power initiative in 2016 under the National Social Investment Programme (NSIP).
The government allocated N1.3 trillion for the implementation of the two and other programmes (Government Empowerment and Enterprise Programme -GEEP) to provide zero interest loans for over 1.2 million artisans and Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT) to provide N5,000 to the poorest households.
While the school feeding programmes provided mid-day meals to pupils in early child care development education classes as well as Primary 1-3, the N-Power was designed to create jobs for 500,000 graduates and an additional 100,000 unemployed youths.
HGSFP- Feeding pupils and enriching
criminals?
With Nigeria home to about 10.5 million out-of-school children nationwide – the highest in the world, the HGSFP is regarded as one of those programmes that can boost enrolment and keep children in school.
As at last February, the Special Adviser to President on Social Investment, Mrs Mariam Uwais, said the HGSFP had surpassed its target of feeding five million children nationwide – achieving its twin target of boosting enrolment and nutrition.
This is apart from creating markets for farmers to sell their produce, and jobs for cooks/food vendors and others along the value chain.
“Some 6,044,625 pupils are being fed daily in 20 states by 61,352 cooks in 33,981 primary schools,” she said in Lagos.
Last week, the Presidency upgraded the number of children being fed daily to 8,260,984 pupils in 45,394 public primary schools in 24 states.
The states are Anambra, Enugu, Oyo, Osun, Ogun, Ebonyi, Zamfara, Delta, Abia, Benue, Plateau, Bauchi, Taraba, Kaduna, Akwa-Ibom, Cross River, Imo, Jigawa, Niger, Kano, Katsina, Gombe, Ondo and Borno.
A statement by the Senior Special Assistant on Media and publicity, Laolu Akande, added that the initiative had also created over 80,000 direct jobs – with 87,261 cooks preparing the meals in the 24 participating states.
He spoke of plans to extend the programme to the 36 states of the federation and the Federal capital Territory (FCT).
Head Teacher of Local Government Nursery and Primary School, Jagunna, in Ewekoro Local Government Area of Ogun State, Mrs Beatrice Daodu, said pupils in her school were being fed meals regularly.
“Our kindergarten children and Primary 1-3 pupils are fed regularly.They had moimoin (bean cake) and eko (pap) today,” she said when The Nation visited last Friday.
However, despite the benefits of the school feeding programme, it has been dogged by corruption.
Bilyaminu Usman Bungudu took to the HGSFP Facebook page to complain of sharp practices in Zamfara State.
“In Zamfara State, the programme is very poor due to the (activities of) politicians. They come in and put their wives and relatives in some schools in Zamfara (who do) not feed (but) share (the) money (among) (themselves). All the ATMs of vendors are (held) by their councillors. We need this organisation to come in and investigate the matter,” she wrote.
Another resident of Zamfara, who worked as a monitor for the programme, Sharhabil Iyya, also lamented the fraudulent practices of the food vendors who reduced the food meant for the pupils.
“I happened to be supervising the programme in some schools in one of the beneficiary states, but to no avail the programme manager discontinued us. Please tell Mrs Maryam Uwais to do something because there is massive fraud and connivance between the vendors and some head teachers and we have been able to exposed that, and also between the vendor’s and some influential peoples, especially in the villages. Because of the little allowances we are gaining, we did a tremendous work in fishing out erred vendors who refused to cook despite collecting money. Please the S.A. to the president on Social Investment Programme should do something. I so hope that this message reaches you,” he wrote.
Mrs Uwais has admitted that corruption was the bane of the programme. She said her office had received reports of diversion of funds by government officials meant to disburse to the cooks in many states and called for help from civil society organisations to monitor the programme.
“We are struggling to battle with some issues. In one state, state officials went as far as diverting 80 per cent of the cooks’ money from their account to a special account in connivance with the banks. In many schools, the programme is working well. But we need feedback so we can catch the culprits,” she said.
Mrs Uwais added that her team was aware of the need for collaboration to catch corrupt officials, but was hampered by lack of funds to mobilise independent monitors to support in monitoring the programme.
N-Power
The N-Power programme has a target of giving work to 500,000 graduates in education, agriculture and health sectors (for the graduates), and providing Information Communication Technology (ICT) skills for an additional 100,000 non-graduates.
Vice President Yemi Osinabjo said so far, the N-Power programme had employed 200,000 youths and has plans to recruit 300,000 more.
The participants are paid a monthly stipend of N30,000 for two years that the programme would last. The hope is that they are able to move on to more stable employment or income-generating ventures afterwards.
In the process of recruiting graduates for the programme, Mrs Uwais said the National Social Investment Office (NSIO) has been able to screen 2.5 million unemployed graduates, providing a veritable database for future planning for youths.
“The N-Power portal, having processed over 2.5M applicants, hosts a database of unemployed graduates seeking employment and as such provides a veritable platform for engaging graduates for the country; private and public sector alike, with data providing details of qualifications, BVN, age, numbers, interests, etc,” she said.
Challenges facing the programme include delay in deployment and payment of beneficiaries. Many have complained about being owned backlogs of stipends or not knowing when payment would be made.
Checks by The Nation revealed that a website, https://www.firstcalljob.com.ng/npower-monthly-salarystipend-latest-20172018-news-update/ which provides information by N-Power programme and deployment, was bombarded by beneficiaries seeking to know why their stipends were delayed in February.
Some lawmakers have also been critical of the National Social Investment Programme, claiming the programme was poorly implemented.
Chairman, Senate Committee on Appropriation Senator Mohammed Danjuma Goje claimed that Nigerians did not feel the impact of the programmes.
However, Mrs Uwais said not all the funds were released to the office.
She said though N500 billion was appropriated for the NSIP last year, only N90 billion was released and this year, only N85 billion.
