POLITICS: Lai Mohammed, Reveals How Much President Buhari Spends On Feeding Pupils Daily.

Those asking for President Muhammadu Buhari’s achievement since assuming office May 29, 2015 probably can soften a bit as official information have it that he feeds 8.2 million pupils daily across 45,000 schools with undisclosed amount of money.

This achievement was revealed by Minister of Information and Culture Lai Mohammed said at the weekend in a keynote address he delivered at the 2018 “Africa Together Conference” at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom (UK).

He added by investing on education and skills acquisition, the administration is addressing the need to create opportunities for unemployed youth population.

“In my country, school enrolment is a challenge we face. And one of the main culprits is malnutrition. Government has stepped in: 8.2 million are being fed daily free meals in 45,000 schools. Not only does this increase attendance and provide children with a – in some case only – nutritious meal a day, it enhances learning efficacy in class and boosts cognitive development over the long term.

“Home-Grown School Feeding programme has yielded other results, including the employment of over 80,000 cooks and a ready-made market for food crop farmers.

“Much of our programme has honed-in on business reform. Nigeria has moved up 24 places on the World Bank Ranking of Ease of Doing Business index – putting it among the top 10 global reformers, along with Zambia, Malawi and Djibouti. The two areas we have prioritised are starting a business and access to credit.

In the area of infrastructure, the Minister who was represented by his media aide Segun Adeyemi, said that a lot of budgetary expenditure goes into infrastructural development across the nation.

“For instance, Nigeria earmarks 30 per cent of its annual national budgets for capital expenditure. That means N2.7 trillion has gone towards our infrastructure in the last two years – unprecedented in our history. Power generation has climbed to 7000MW (from just over 2500MW), to which we hope to add another 2000MW by the end of the year. We have also laid down thousands of kilometres of road.

“Also, the government has now signed a concession agreement with an international consortium led by General Electric. This will breathe new life into the tracks, increasing capacity and speed. Not only will this allow for goods and services to be moved around cost-effectively, it will allow the prosperity of the nation to be more equitably spread through increased connectivity.”