BY BRIGHT JACOB
Policy implementation remains one of the banes of lofty initiatives like the school feeding programme in the country. This was the submission of a senior lawyer, Fred Aigbadumah, at the weekend.
Aigbadumah, a notary public of the Supreme Court, was reacting to the announcement by the Federal Government that it plans to take the National Home Grown School Feeding Programme (NHGSFP) to “the next level.”
The Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Sadiya Farouq, had said in a joint statement with the United Nations World Food Programme, that her ministry, in partnership with the WFP, would be taking the NHGSFP to the next level to address the problem of school enrollment among primary school pupils, as well as other child-related issues. According to Farouq, the WFP would provide technical assistance.
Speaking with The Point, Aigbadumah said that the idea behind the school feeding programme was laudable, and Nigeria was not suffering from a shortage of ideas or policies, but we always got things wrong during implementation.
“As it is a common practice in Nigeria and most underdeveloped countries, the problem is not with policy, it’s not even with the idea. No matter how beautiful, wonderful, marvellous or well packaged an idea or policy may be, the problem has always been with the implementation,” he said.
He added, “Even when it is very lucrative in appearance, it’s the implementation that defines the next direction.
So, the idea of school feeding, supposing it will be well followed, ideally and practically, would definitely go a long way in attracting interests for children to return to school, especially in the northern part of the country,” he added.
Continuing, Aigbadumah who is also a public commentator and policy analyst said, “the problem is not about new ideas. It is one thing to have an idea or a project, or even a policy, but a different thing altogether to follow it up to the latter end.”
“Let there be guarantee or assurance of safety, security and protection. They don’t need this school feeding for children to be able to go to school, because the school feeding is not even an incentive, and the good part of the fund released for that (school feeding), we know how it ends up
“
He likened the school feeding programme to the unfortunate incident of the Covid-19 palliative in 2020 during the lockdown and concluded that some parts of the country had been exempted from the programme.
“Just like the covid-19 palliative in 2020 during the lockdown, how many families, how many homes were actually reached with the palliative? It was towards the end of the #EndSars protests that the bubble burst when everything was exposed, that we got to know that no dime, in fact, nothing got to some parts of the country,” he said.
Giving further insight on some of the policy failures in Nigeria, Aigbadumah queried the lopsided way the Nigerian government went about implementing some of their programmes. According to him, that was another reason why most policies failed in Nigeria.
“The situation with the #EndSars showed the type of government we have in place today. You see, the fear again, apart from the issue of implementation that may be very difficult, is the fact that the same lopsided nature of taking steps that could adequately or sufficiently ameliorate the condition of the masses, may apply here as well.”
He also said in situations where the programme was intended to be well implemented, another thing was if it would be nationwide.
On the report that the FG in conjunction with the WFP had promised to scale up the school feeding programme thereby taking it to the next level, he questioned the genuineness of its implementation and opined that before anyone could talk about a next level, and there should be a background to what was being said.
Let there be guarantee or assurance of safety, security and protection. They don’t need this school feeding for children to be able to go to school, because the school feeding is not even an incentive, and the good part of the fund released for that (school feeding), we know how it ends up
“Before you talk of the next level, what level did they start from? What level was the starting point? Where did they start from? When you talk of the next level, at least there must be a background. There must be an antecedent. The question about the genuineness of the implementation must be addressed first before we talk about the next level. Next level of what?” he said.
According to Sadiya Farouq, in the joint statement released with the WFP, the next level was one that would “boost the local economy and increase school enrolment and attendance among primary school pupils.”
Reacting to this, Aigbadumah remarked that the school feeding programme wasn’t the reason why there would be an increase in school enrollment and attendance. He urged the government to address the issue of Internally Displaced Persons first.
“We all know what is responsible for and affecting school enrollment in the country. Most of the children or pupils that should be in school are in IDP camps, and we all know that there’s no genuine intention to combat that problem; and if you really want to combat that problem (poor enrollment and attendance in school), you should start from there.”
“Let the environment be well ventilated. Let the environment be attractive enough. Let there be a guarantee or assurance of safety, security and protection. They don’t need this school feeding for children to be able to go to school, because the school feeding is not even an incentive, and the good part of the fund released for that (school feeding), we know how it ends up,” he said.
The legal luminary also disagreed with the minister and the WFP that the programme had provided the much-needed boost to local economies by buying the products of smallholder farmers and providing jobs to more than 107,000 cooks from low-income families and that the schools provided local farmers with an avenue to sell their farm produce, thus opening up channels for stable income, as well as more investments and higher productivity for the farmers.
In his opinion, “We all know what can help to boost local production, especially food production, or to increase food produce in the market. It is when farmers are free to go to their farms,” he said.
Aigbadumah observed that when farmers who were tasked with the responsibility of food production were allowed and free to do so, it would increase local food production. “We know the number of farmers and others that have been driven out of their farms.
“Some are in their graveyards as we speak now as a result of the activities of the same people that threatened the security of the nation, either kidnappers, herdsmen or even the so-called bandits or terrorists. Therefore, it’s not a question of school feeding increasing or stimulating food production,” he added.
Aigbadumah, who is a pastor in the Redeemed Christian Church of God, described the school feeding programme as a “bogus programme and a white elephant project with no genuine intention to actually reach those that are supposed to be reached.” He also said that the common man on the streets would not give the programme any pass mark.
“Even though I am not a judge over anybody or an examiner over anybody, if you take this issue to the public domain, what will be the response of the majority of the common man on the streets? That judgement will be my judgement. There would be no pass mark anywhere,” he concluded.
A medical expert, Tunde Ipaiye, spoke on the nutritional benefits of the school feeding programme. According to him, the school feeding programme could be used to correct nutritional imbalance among the less privileged in the society thereby promoting productivity and mental alertness in developing economies like Nigeria.
“If you look at developing economies in the world, even in developed economies, school feeding is one of the very important merits of ensuring productivity and the ability of the child to be of mental alertness at the point of learning. Therefore, in many developing economies, it is the school feeding that you use to correct the nutritional imbalances within the system especially when you look at the value it brings to the people below the last two quadrants of the socio-economic scale,” he remarked.
Continuing, he said, “So, everywhere you have poor people, you give them equal opportunity through the quality of food, by way of school feeding system. You will be able to enhance the nutritional status of the people which is directly proportional to mental acumen and productivity.”
Ipaiye who was also the immediate past commissioner of health in Ogun state, however, stated that even if there was no doubt about the usefulness of the school feeding programme, its implementation appeared to have lost its steam.
“There’s no doubt about its usefulness. When it comes to implementation, the general observation is that when the programme started in Nigeria, it was very well celebrated, but it appears it has lost its steam,” he said.
