The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has accused the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs of planning to feed ghost pupils as they have decided to proceed with the School Feeding Programme even as schools have been on an emergency vacation due to COVID-19 lockdown for nearly two months.

HURIWA has therefore called on the President of the Senate, Dr. Ahmed Lawan, and the Speaker of the Federal House of Representatives. Mr. Femi Gbajabiamila, to halt the “sinister attempts to misapply public funds under the guise of feeding children when they are not in schools and millions of these school children may have been relocated from their original residences as a result of the circumstances and inevitable movements thrown up by the health emergency occasioned by the Coronavirus pandemic in Nigeria.”

The rights group asked: "From where do they want to get the pupils to feed whilst the lockdown is in place? Are they going to bring up displaced almajiris as the bonafide pupils or will they, as usual, manufacture ghosts as pupils? These school children have all gone to their homes and millions of these kids may have been relocated to towns other than where they reside with their Parents or guardians.

“Why is this government so incorrigible and resistant to the truth? Why can't the government do first things first but would press on with a muddled up plot to divert public funds under the guise of feeding school children and, by the way, school children who are not in schools are not school children.

“The Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC) and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), if they are patriotic enough, should question the Humanitarian Affairs Minister for pretending to feed school children when there is no school in session and assuming without conceding that there are children to be arranged and fed. Those are not school children because school children are found in schools and not from all corners of the streets when the schools are understandably on vacation."

HURIWA recalled that the Minister, Hajia Sadiya Farouq, has said that the school feeding programme will be implemented despite the closure of schools nationwide even against the factual background that Schools across Nigeria have been closed for about seven weeks to check the spread of COVID-19.

In the media statement by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, and the National Media Affairs Director, Miss Zainab Yusuf, the rights group said that even the Minister reportedly admitted before the investigative session organized by the National Assembly that she does not have a fuller understanding of the modalities for proceeding with the implementation of the School Feeding Programme when these schools across the country have since closed down due to the Coronavirus pandemic in Nigeria.

It expressed shock that this same person who only few weeks back admitted that she was unaware of how to proceed with the School Feeding Programme surprisingly told the bewildered nation yesterday May 11 that the programme that is ravaged by administrative and operational corruption of a monumental proportions would go on.

The Minister was quoted as saying that talks with state governors to ensure the continuation of the programme as directed by President Muhammadu Buhari has commenced.

HURIWA also expressed disappointment that the Ministry is pressing ahead with the School Feeding Programme which is a component of the Social Investment Programme which the Minister reportedly admitted is fraught with corruption even without first and foremost eradicating the corruption in the system and drawing up a believable and credible data of the genuine beneficiaries of all the segments of the programmes embedded within the Social Investment Programme.

“HURIWA strongly believes that if this school feeding programme goes ahead now that school children are scattered all over the place and are not in schools, it is a perfect alibi for massive scale of theft and diversion of public fund by these officials who will simply feed ghost pupils and thereafter siphon the funds. We recall that during the last encounter between the National Assembly and the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs there were unanimity of positions that the implementation is marred by large scale corruption.

The rights group further stated that the School Feeding Programme will not be credible if it goes on now bearing in mind the fact that even the pliant Speaker of the All Progressives Congress dominated House of Representatives confessed that the relevant committees in the House have been complaining bitterly even before the Minister took over the scheme about the inability to access information about the scheme just as he said Nigeria’s SIP is similar to the Unemployment Insurance Act in the UK and the Social Security Act in the US.

HURIWA recalled that in his last recorded broadcast on COVID-19 President Buhari had stated that although schools are closed, he had instructed the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development to work with State Governments in developing a strategy on how to sustain the school feeding program during this period without compromising our social distancing policies.

HURIWA believes that there are no valid school children to be fed now but the announced intention to proceed with it “is a systematic and well choreographed plot to steal public fund by officials of government even going by the fact that the Minister reportedly admitted that the system is not transparent enough during her meeting with the national parliament. This must be stopped.”

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