SPECIAL REPORT: How stoppage of Govt Feeding Program is worsening Yobe’s Out-of-School crisis
Kunle Sanni
In a well-lit room that serves as the head teacher’s office, Jeremiah Daniel hastily stood from his wooden desk as he headed to the library corner, a cosy nook piled up with perforated books.
Prompted by our reporters’ earlier visit last year, the 58-year-old principal at Lago Primary School in Damaturu, Yobe State capital, flipped through several dusty pages of documentation from the last visit from the cooks and food vendors assigned to his school since 2017—as part of the federal government’s support feeding scheme.
The turning of pages echoed the room softly until he paused, nudging a finger onto a specific entry. “Yes, there it is,” he said. The records show that the cooks had not visited the school in over a year—a gap experts say has undermined the effectiveness of the much-touted National Home Grown School Feeding (NHGSF) programme.
“The last time the cooks came here was in January 2023,” he added.
Daniel’s Lago Primary School is one of many in the state that have been negatively affected by the suspension of the school feeding scheme.
School Feeding
The HGSF programme, one of the five programmes under the National Social Investment Programme Agency (NSIPA), was launched in 2016 during the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari. The initiative was created to provide meals exclusively for primary school pupils.
The NSIPA was officially established through an Act signed into law by President Buhari in May 2023. The agency was created to provide a legal and institutional framework for Nigeria’s social investment programmes, which had previously operated under the Office of the Vice President without a statutory structure.
NSIPA, which is under the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation, is responsible for coordinating and managing flagship social welfare schemes such as the NHGSF, N-Power, Conditional Cash Transfer, the Government Enterprise and Empowerment Programme (GEEP), and the newly established Grant for Vulnerable Groups.
The school feeding programme enjoys multifaceted support from international partners, NGOs, governors’ and the federal government’s yearly N500 billion funded budget for NSIPs.
The government-led social inclusion scheme, which provides N70 (0.046 USD) per day, aims to reduce the number of out-of-school children while combating poverty and malnutrition. This initiative is arguably the most extensive school feeding programme in Africa.
The scheme has also been successful in integrating the local women who serve as cooks into the banking system.
According to a survey done by Global Child Nutrition (GCNF), a not-for-profit organisation, between the 2018 and 2019 academic years, the programme provided daily meals to approximately 9.8 million primary school pupils across the country.
A similar survey done by EconStor, a publication server for scholarly economic literature, says that in the 2020-2021 academic year, NHGSFP served over 7.5 million pupils in 46,000 public schools nationwide.
The annual budget and expenditures for the programmes have not been made public since their inception.
No school feeding in other schools
Like Daniel, Mamuda Abare, the head teacher of Moi Abali Memorial Primary School in Damaturu, said the last time the food vendors reported for work was in 2023.
He also said this situation has led to a significant decline in enrolment and student attendance.
According to him, before the start of the school feeding programme in 2018, the school had approximately 12,000 pupils. After the programme began, the headteacher said the enrolment increased to 15,000 but has since decreased to 14,000.
He said, ‘’When the programme started, it helped expand a huge turnout of students who did not want to attend school.
“However, since the programme stopped, enrollment and attendance in our school have reduced significantly, contributing to the out-of-school children crises we are working to solve.”
Speaking on the challenges, the head teacher complained about the number of vendors. He said the scheme posted 24 cooks to feed classes 1, 2, and 3, a figure he said was grossly insufficient given the number of students in his school.
‘’I would want the government to provide more cooks when the programme restarts,’’ he added.
Muhammed Lawan, 57, the head teacher at Kachaalla-Bauya Primary School in Buniyadi, Potiskum, Yobe State, said the programme suspension has caused a significant decline in enrolment.
He said his school lacked adequate teachers and poor infrastructure. ‘’When I assumed in 2017, we had 17 teachers; now we have just nine,’’ he added.
Child labour
WESTERN POST also observed hundreds of children on the street and at settlement camps out of schools and doing menial jobs.
Adamu Ishaku, 15 years old, wakes up every morning to fetch water for market traders, using a mini water truck to earn a daily income of N200-300 (USD 0.13). His income supports his injured father and his mother’s small trading business.
Having left school in primary 3, Adamu works from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., spending his days away from the classroom.
’I do most of my work alone, but sometimes I get help from my friends in the market,” he said.
Education expert Oriyomi Ogunwale, Team Lead, Eduplana, a not-for-profit organisation, says the number of out-of-school children in Yobe State is alarming, exacerbated by the ongoing Boko Haram insurgency.
He said poverty and cultural barriers to education can also be reduced by engaging community leaders and parents to get involved in their child’s education.
According to him, “This will motivate school-aged children to develop foundational learning skills and meet their education needs, which will make them thrive in the classroom and want to further their education.“
Ogunwale also called on the state government to intensify its interventions, such as the Back to School Campaign, “to encourage learners back to the classroom.”
Out-of-School Children
WESTERN POST understands that since the suspension of the NHGSF programme, schools in Yobe State has had a negative impact on enrolment, contributing to the increasing number of out-of-school children.
Daniel said that during the school feeding programme in 2019, the number of school pupils increased from 485 to 622. However, enrollees have reduced, and the number of attendants has halved.
According to him, the abrupt suspension of the federal government initiative to cook for school pupils has further reduced school enrolment in his school and largely worsened the issue of out-of-school children.
“You see them roaming around, especially now during the farming season—mostly on the farms. But it wasn’t like this in the past,” he told WESTERN POST .
He, therefore, projected that if the programme had continued, the population would have increased to over 800.
Yobe State faces a significant educational challenge, with approximately 427, 230 children—representing 43 per cent of the state’s child population—currently out of school. This places Yobe among the Nigerian states with the highest percentages of out-of-school children, after Kebbi (67.6 per cent) and Sokoto (66.4 per cent).
Ogunwale of Eduplana also called for synergy among state government, education officials, community leaders and parents to take responsibility for children’s education in Yobe State and begin to address the out-of-school children menace.
State govt reacts
Bukar Aji-Bukar, the state permanent secretary of the Ministry of Education, told WESTERN POST that the state relies on the federal government’s feeding programme because it does not provide meals for students in its public primary schools.
He added, however, that the state does have a feeding programme for its boarding schools, where boarding students receive three meals a day and day students receive one meal daily.
Speaking on what the state is doing to keep children in classrooms, the official said the government has established the School-Based Management Committee (SBMC) to increase student retention.
He said the committee is under the state Ministry for Basic Education, which comprises community members, parents, teachers, and students.
Bukar also addressed concerns about the inadequate number of school teachers per student, saying the government prefers to provide more teachers to populated schools—mostly secondary schools.
He said the teachers have shifts in morning and afternoon school sessions.
‘’We (Yobe State) transferred about 2,846 teachers from the senior secondary school to the junior,’’ he added.
‘’And we know of the issue. But as I’ve said earlier, in highly populated schools, we do give them, especially the secondary schools; they do it in two sessions in the morning. Morning—two shifts, morning and afternoon, so we didn’t do away with the teacher-student ratio. ‘So that means a teacher who has been teaching from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m., which is the first session,’’ he added.
When contacted, Iliya Rhoda Ishaku, Director of Information and Public Relations at the humanitarian ministry, directed WESTERN POST to contact the NSIPA office on its enquiry regarding school feeding. Meanwhile, efforts to reach Hope Attari, the Communications Manager of NSIPA, were unsuccessful.
Past challenges and resolve
One of the essentials for launching the programme is increasing attendance and reducing out-of-school problems not only in Yobe State but in other benefiting states.
The scheme is largely supported by state governments and other development partners. It provides food for over 24 million schoolchildren, in addition to states’ independent feeding systems, such as boarding schools.
However, the scheme has faced several controversies in the few years it was kicked off, with reports revealing a shortage of funds for a period, a shortage of food vendors, and administrative challenges.
The challenges intensified, especially during the past four years, when the initiative was shifted from the NSIO under the leadership of former presidential adviser to Buhari, Mariam Uwais, to the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs under Sadiya Farouq.
During Ms Farouq’s tenure as custodian of the programmes, school feeding activities were halted, especially in the first few months. When it resumed operations in subsequent months, the scheme was filled with irregularities, including staggered payment of its monthly stipend to beneficiaries, especially during the post-COVID-19 lockdown.
To address issues of past irregularities, the President Bola Tinubu-led administration sacked Farooq and appointed Beta Edu as minister of the ministry.
‘’There were so many anomalies that led to the suspension of the programme, and it was suspended for over three years as a result of the handlers of the programme,’ a source at the presidency told WESTERN POST.
The administration also announced plans to increase school meal coverage from 10 million to 20 million children in 2025 through expanded partnerships and investments. And approved N32.7 billion for the social investment programme intended to assist vulnerable groups.
The government later charged Ms Farouq and other past programme administrators for alleged corruption by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). Ms Farooq was charged for her alleged involvement in a ₦37.1 billion fraud during her tenure.
Months later, allegations of corruption rattled the programme involving the humanitarian minister.
In a swift reaction, the president sacked Edu over allegations of mismanagement of office and suspended the accounts and other activities of the programme. He subsequently set up a presidential panel to investigate issues of corruption.
In August, President Tinubu appointed Badamasi Lawal as the new Chief Executive Officer of NSIPA and proposed an amendment to the NSIP Act in November of last year to designate the National Social Register as the primary tool for targeting beneficiaries of social investment initiatives.
This measure, he said, aims to ensure that welfare programmes are data-driven and deliver effective social protection to Nigeria’s most vulnerable citizens.
Suspension lifted since Feb, yet no trace of school feeding; official, sources say
Yetunde Adeniji, the Senior Special Assistant to President Tinubu on School Feeding, stated in an exclusive interview with WESTERN POST that the administration plans to relaunch the programme soon. She also mentioned plans to use technology to ensure timely programme monitoring and prompt payment to the food vendors.
While deliberations continue regarding the role of the school feeding programme in addressing the rising number of out-of-school children, the exact date for its resumption remains unannounced.
However, this newspaper has learnt from multiple sources within the ministry and NSIPA that the suspension of the Homegrown School Feeding Programme has been lifted since February of this year and accounts have been unfrozen.
The source familiar with the matter, who requested anonymity because they do not have authorisation to speak to the press, disclosed that the newly appointed minister, Nentawe Yilwatda, has constituted a steering committee comprising multi-sectoral stakeholders to oversee the relaunch of the programme by the next school resumption date.
WESTERN POST further gathered that while the committee’s recommendations are still under review, preliminary discussions indicate a potential shift from the existing “Cooks-for-Cook” model to a proposed “Mother-for-Cook” framework.
‘’This new proposed model would most likely not work because the model is not under the new NSIP Act that was assented to by former President Buhari,’’ the source said.
Our source also reliably confirmed the committee’s compliance with President Tinubu’s directive on improving the National Social Register (NSR), which would involve the use of technology and be handled by the National Identity Management Commission (NIMC).
‘’There is a strategy involving visiting all 774 Local Government Areas (LGAs) in the country to identify the students. These students will be registered and captured in the National Identification Number (NIN) system. This NIN will be linked to their mothers or carers and will be utilised for the National Social Register.’’
Govt should look beyond feeding to boost school enrolment — Expert
As the government moves forward with the revamped school feeding programme, stakeholders are calling for a more integrated and expansive strategy to address the educational needs of not only Yobe State but across the nation and reduce the number of out-of-school children.
Policy analyst Jide Ojo, in an interview with WESTERN POST, said the programme’s size and implementation strategy may not be sufficient enough to address the scale of the out-of-school crisis in Yobe State and Nigeria at large.
Rather, he called for a comprehensive overhaul — improvement of infrastructure, hiring more teachers, better welfare packages, ensuring food and existing programme sustainability, and granting full financial autonomy to local governments — to truly make schools functional and education impactful.
‘’So, what many pupils wrote down is that, when the food is served, they will eat and then go back home. So, while it has led to an increase in enrolment, it has not ensured retention. And the solution lies in the need to improve infrastructure in the school environment,’’ he said.
‘’School buildings, toilet facilities, library, and laboratory make the school environment conducive. I mean, it does not credit any government, whether primary, secondary, or tertiary, where pupils are learning in open-level environments or under the tree, sitting on stools, where parents have to build the walls to supply furniture, where children have to carry their chairs and lockers to school. So, that has to be looked into.
‘’The other thing is the recruitment of teachers, an adequate number of teachers to teach these pupils who have endeavoured to come to school. Situations where a teacher is, or the staff in schools are, very inadequate, grossly inadequate. Imagine a whole school, from primary 1 to 6, having just four or five teachers, inclusive of headmasters, teachers and admins.“
