FG’s school feeding has created 500,000 jobs for Nigerians – Princess Orelope-Adefulire
Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), Princess Adejoke Orelope-Adefulire has said that the school feeding project embarked upon by the Buhari-led Federal Government has provided about 500,000 jobs for Nigerians. She also said voting for Buhari in 2019 Presidential election would take the country to the next level of development.
The Senior special assistant made this assertion in Lagos on Tuesday during the support rally for the Buhari/Osinbajo Presidential ticket.
An overwhelming cheer from party supporters welcomed Princess Orelope-Adefulire to the rostrum where she urged Nigerians not to waste their votes but to cast them for continuity and development.
“A vote for President Muhammadu Buhari in 2019 will take us to the next level,” she said.
Applauding Buhari’s passion for the transportation sector, Princess Orelope-Adefulire said voting Buhari for a second term is what can further develop infrastructure in the transport sector where Nigerians would have the choice to choose of whatever means of transportation they so wish to travel by.
“In the area of transportation, you would be able to choose whether to travel by road, rail, water or air,” she added, pointing the people’s attention to the sharp reduction in cases of road accidents in Nigeria.
“I don’t know if we have noticed in the last one year that we have not been seeing dead bodies on the front pages of our newspapers like the days we used to see dead bodies on the front pages due to high rates of accidents on the road.
She also highlighted the success of the school feeding embarked upon by the Buhari-led administration. “I am sure we have seen that in some states of the federation, school children have started having one meal per day. This is part of the social development projects of the government.
“This government has covered about 16 states of the federation and before the end of this administration; the entire 36 states would have been covered on the school feeding project. We are giving our children good nutrition, they are healthier and alert,” she said.
The former Deputy Governor of Lagos State also talked about the economic benefit of the school feeding programme. “By providing one meal a day for our school children, we have created not fewer than 500,000 jobs for the food vendors in various schools and we are creating more, she said, adding that, “In our school feeding project, it is about Nigerian rice.”
“I didn’t know all the states of the federation can grow rice. We started in Lagos many years ago. I told our leaders if Lagos can grow rice, then there is no state in Nigeria that cannot grow rice. As I speak to you now, two third of the states in Nigeria are growing rice. Importation of rice has gone down significantly, the money has gone back to the pocket of our rice farmers and the important thing about Nigerian rice is that it is the best for us. Imported rice is polished rice and the rice we grow in Nigeria is not polished. It is the best and we now have thousands of farmers that have gone back to the farms to plant rice.”
She also told the mammoth crowd of party supporters from all over Lagos that the Tradermoni scheme would soon get to Lagos. “I am sure we all know the Tradermoni. In few weeks time, it is coming back to Lagos, it is coming just be patience. It is coming to the people of Nigeria and all of you will benefit,” she said.
Princess Orelope-Adefulire did not forget to tell the audience what the Buhari-led government is doing on the Small and Medium scale Enterprises (SMEs) in its bid to improve people’s lives.
“We are also working on SMEs. We are training people to become employers of labour. When we finish the training, we will give the trained people start-off grants to work with. All these are coming on the next level and a vote for PMB in 2019 is taking us to the next level,” she said.
