Tobi Soniyi in Abuja
The Vice President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, has said the Federal Government remained committed to getting more Nigerians out of poverty.
According to him, the fundamental right to life would be worthless should government fail to get a large number of the citizenry out of poverty and also surmount the health and education challenges of children and vulnerable groups.
Osinbajo, who spoke on Thursday in Abuja at the launching of the Home Grown School Feeding Programme, was joined by Governors Kashim Shettima of Borno; Abiola Ajimobi (Oyo); Rauf Aregbesola (Osun) and Nasir el-Rufai (Kaduna) in launching the Global School Feeding Sourcebook: Lessons from 14 Countries’, an analysis of national school feeding programmes from across the globe.
It was compiled by the Partnership for Child Development, the World Bank and World Food Programme
He also said that the programme would create jobs in the rural communities.
Osinabjo said that the current government would ensure that the objective of feeding about 20 million children of school ages would be realized with the programme.
He said the programme was the fulfillment of All Progressives Congress (APC) campaign promise to Nigerians that it would at least provide one meal per day for pupils.
He said: “The Home Grown School Feeding Programme is one of the five social investment programmes of the Buhari administration. The Social Investmet Programme is the largest single dedicated provision for social investment in Nigeria.
“Of the N6 trillion budget, N500 billion is dedicated to the social investment programme.
“This is a victory from a point of view that the inalienable right to life confirmed in the Nigerian constitution is meaningnless in the society if a large number are poor, if government does not invest significantly in getting people out of poverty and addressing the health, education issues of children and other vulnerable groups.
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