The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Thursday, May 14, described the President Buhari Government’s home school feeding programme as “a big scam.
PDP said the school feeding programme even when schools are shut due to the COVID-19 pandemic was a scheme by the “corrupt All Progressives Congress (APC) leaders and some officials in the Buhari Presidency to siphon a targeted N13.5 billion public funds to finance their wasteful lifestyle.”
The party described the use of innocent school children as a cover to steal and funnel not less than N679 million daily to private purses as “sacrilegious, wicked and completely unpardonable.”
PDP said this in a statement signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan.
According to PDP: “While it is clear that the APC-led administration’s school feeding programme had always been a scam, the claims to feed school children even when schools are closed is colossal racketeering taken too far.
“This goes to further expose that stealing and corruption are deeply ingrained in the DNA of the APC and its administration.
“While the PDP has nothing against any transparent effort to provide succor to Nigerians, particularly our children, at this critical time, our party rejects the on-going fraud in which school children, who are in their respective homes, bearing the brunt of the failures of the APC administration, are being used as metaphors to divert public funds to a few corrupt individuals in the Buhari Presidency.
“Nigerians are witnesses to how the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, Hajiya Umar Farouq, has always stammered, makes conflicting pronouncements and points to Mr. President’s speech as a cover each time Nigerians demand details of her humongous spending.
“The minister had failed to provide details of how she intends to reach the 9.7 million school children, who are now in their homes in different locations since the closure of schools, even as officials continue to muddle up required documentation in a bid to cover their tracks.
“Nigerians are invited to note how the minister contradicted herself in claiming that the food would be shared door-to-door and in the same breath, averred that vouchers would be allocated at specific collection times to “avoid overcrowding”.
“Such contradiction only betrays an unwholesome tendency, as Nigerians wonder how there would be overcrowding on the door-to-door distribution of food to children who are claimed to have been individually designated in various locations.”
