Home FEATURES Buhari’s Government Now Feeds 5 Million School Pupils In 19 States Free

Buhari’s Government Now Feeds 5 Million School Pupils In 19 States Free

School-feedingPresident Muhammadu Buhari administration’s National Home-Grown School Feeding (NHGSF) Programme is said to have spread to 19 states across Nigeria.

The states are Anambra, Enugu, Oyo, Osun, Ogun, Ebonyi, Zamfara, Delta, Abia, Benue, Plateau, Bauchi, Taraba, Kaduna, Akwa Ibom, Cross River, Imo, Jigawa and Niger.

According to information made available to news men today, Monday, by the senior special assistant to Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, on media and publicity, Laolu Akande, over five million pupils in 28,249 schools in the 19 states are currently been fed under the programme, while Kano and Katsina states are expected to be added to the beneficiaries states in the coming weeks.

Akande said that over 50,000 cooks are currently engaged under the programme, adding that the school feeding programme, which is part of President Buhari administration’s N500 billion National Social Investment Programmes, has a target to feed 5.5 million schoolchildren by the end of 2017.

He sid that the School Feeding Programme is now collaborating with the Federal Ministry of Health to deliver an integrated de-worming programme for pupils in all public primary schools, from classes 1 to 6 across in 17 states which he said is currently under the NHGSFP in the country.

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“At least 243 Local Government Areas will benefit from the deworming exercise in the 17 states, including Abia, Akwa Ibom, Enugu, Niger, Osun, Bauchi, Jigawa, Katsina, Zamfara, Anambra, Benue, Imo, Kano, Kaduna, Ebonyi, Delta and Plateau states.

“The integrated programme, which is scheduled for the first and second week of December in these states, will deliver three different drugs for the treatment of diseases endemic to specific states; particularly schistosomiasis; soil-transmitted helminths and river blindness/onchocerciasis. The drugs to be distributed are Albendazole, Ivermectin and Parazaquintel.

“Supported by the Federal Government, three facilitators would be within the states for the period to achieve these objectives and ensure that the pupils in these states are de-wormed.”[myad]