Galadima faults FG’s school feeding claim amid lockdown

Elder statesman, Alhaji Buba Galadima, has described as the height of swindle the Federal Government’s claim of sustaining the school feeding programme while pupils are at home.

President Muhammadu Buhari, during his nationwide broadcast on March 29, said the school feeding programme would not be affected by the lockdown.

According to Buhari, although schools were closed, he has instructed the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadia Umar-Farouq, to work with state governments in developing a strategy on how to sustain the school feeding programme during this period without compromising the social distancing policies.

Speaking at the Presidential Task Force (PTF) on COVID-19 briefing in Abuja on Wednesday, the minister said the government had overhauled the programme in a way to ensure that pupils were fed at home despite the lockdown.

But Galadima expressed shock over the statement.

His words, “I am shocked to hear about these two contradictory statements. I don’t blame members of this government because they don’t believe that there is any Nigerian that can really understand their tricks, or their lies, to put it properly. They believe that everybody is like them and we can just take in anything that they have said.”

The elder statesman asserted that Nigeria had gone beyond fanaticism on any human being and that the citizens were wiser, intelligent and could ask questions.

“Even when the pupils were in school, the feeding project had been questionable and a lot of people had a lot of misgivings about the system, that it is ‘job for the boys’ and people were just collecting money monthly from government for doing no job,” he said.

This, he added, is true because the quality and quantity of the food were questionable.

“To come and even insult our sensibilities that they feed students while they are on forced holiday, when parents don’t even have what to eat because they have no access to palliatives, is the height of corruption.

“I am a parent and I have not seen anything given to my children or those of my relatives, or not even any of my friends can say any of their children has been receiving food.”