Buhari releases N375m for pupils’ feeding in 5 states

President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration has released over N375 million to feed almost 700,000 primary school pupils in five states.

The Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity to the Acting President, Laolu Akande, said yesterday that the fund was last week released to Anambra, Ogun, Oyo, Osun and Ebonyi states to cover the feeding for 10 school days.

He stated: “The sum of about N375, 434, 870 has just been released and paid to 7,909 cooks in those states for the feeding of a total of 677, 476 primary school pupils.

“Ogun State got a total of N119, 648, 900 paid to 1.381 cooks to feed 170, 927 pupils. Ebonyi State got N115, 218, 600 paid to 1.466 cooks to feed 164, 598 pupils. Anambra State got N67.5m paid to 937 cooks to feed 96,489 pupils. Oyo State got N72.2m paid to 1437 cooks to feed 103, 269 pupils. Osun State got N867,370 paid to 2688 to feed 142, 193 pupils.”

Akande said later this week, the figures would go up when Zamfara and Enugu states are expected to be paid N188.7 million and N67.2 million respectively.

“In Zamfara, the sum would be paid to 2,738 cooks to feed 269, 665 pupils. And in Enugu, the sum would be paid to 1128 cooks to feed 96, 064 pupils. By then, over N631 million would have been released so far in 2017 for school feeding in 7 states, paid to 11,775 cooks and meant to feed over one million primary school pupils-exact number of pupils by then would be 1, 043, 205,” he said.

On the N-Power scheme, Akande said the process of payments of beneficiaries had advanced in all but two states.

Regarding the Conditional Cash Transfer, Akande said payments continued in the nine pilot states of Bauchi, Borno, Niger, Kogi, Cross Rivers, Osun, Oyo Ekiti, and Kwara.