5.5 million school children to benefit from free meal programme – Lai Mohammed

The Minister of Informa­tion and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed has stated that the Federal Government, and not the states, will fund the A-Meal-A-Day programme launched last week.
Mohammed also said when fully op­erational, 5.5 million school children will benefit from the programme. He made the clarification in Lagos, yester­day, at the eighth Alhaji Kafaru Tinubu Memorial Ramadan Lecture, with the theme: “Supreme sacrifice and the essence of followership
in governance.”According to him, the Federal Government was working carefully towards making life more meaningful for Nigerians through carefully designed projects, noting that a N500 billion Social Intervention Pro­gramme had been put in place to help alleviate poverty, Daily Post reports.
“This government is making a lot of sacrifices and it is also expecting a lot of sacrifices from the people. The N500 bil­lion Social Intervention Programme which is broken into five parts covers employ­ment of 500, 000 unemployed graduates who will be trained as teachers. It also cov­ers the employment of 100, 000 artisans as well as the One-Meal-A-Day programme for pupils in primary schools.
“The Enterprise Scheme which is target­ed at one million market men and women, 460, 000 artisans, 200, 000 agriculture workers is also covered in the programme. It also covers the N5,000 monthly condi­tional cash transfer to the poor and vulner­able,’’ he said.