By Jonathan Ugbal; Government House Correspondent
The Cross River State Government has failed to commence the Home Grown School Feeding program more than 3 months after promising to domesticate it.
The head of the program in the state, Mr. Gabriel Okulaja had in mid March said the state will begin feeding 130,000 pupils in 6 weeks which as at May 17, 2017 had elapsed with nothing been done and no process to show that the initial stage of getting the foodstuffs suppliers.
This was further proved by Nigeria’s Women Affairs and Social Development, Senator Aisha Al-Hassan yesterday when she visited Cross River Governor, Senator Aisha Al-Hassan and called on him to “Introduce one of the programs (of the federal government) which is the home grown school feeding program.”
She continued: “The advantages are enormous. It is home-grown school feeding because the food stuffs that will be used to cook for the children will be foods that are grown around the schools area. The cook will also be women who are idle in the village. They will be employed for this purpose.”
Al-Hassan was in the state to sensitize the government on five programs of the federal government of which four have taken off and appeal to Ayade to support them as it was “time for governance not politics,” and further explained that: “The federal government is for everybody, but 95 percent of the governed reside in the states, therefore, for the federal government programs to succeed, for it to get to the Nigerian people for whom the programs are meant for, we have to collaborate with the states.”
Senator Al-Hassan who described Ayade as “A champion of women,” commended him for the initiative of the Garment Factory which she said is “A masterstroke for women as over 90 percent of the employees of the garment factory are women. So you are a champion of the Nigerian women, not just Cross River women.”
Governor Ayade in his remarks assured her that the state will soon key into the home grown school feeding program and set up its own version of the program, noting that it was a great one.
As at press time, CrossRiverWatch could not get details about the delay in the commencement of the program as several calls to his line Wednesday morning, did not connect.