The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has said that the President Muhammadu Buhari administration is steadily transforming Nigeria through innovative measures that are yielding positive results.
In a keynote address delivered at the 2018 ‘Africa Together Conference’ at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom on Saturday, the minister listed investment in people, changing the business environment and building national infrastructure as some of the areas in which he claimed the administration had made a great impact.
He said by focusing on education and skills acquisition, the administration was addressing the need to create opportunities for the country’s teeming youth population.
The minister’s speech was made available to journalists through a statement in Abuja on Sunday.
He said, “In my country, school enrolment is a challenge we face. And one of the main culprits is malnutrition. The government has stepped in: 8.2 million (pupils) are being fed daily free meals in 45,000 schools.
“Not only does this increase attendance and provide children with a — in some cases, only — nutritious meal a day, it enhances learning efficacy in class and boosts cognitive development over the long term.”
He said the Home-Grown School Feeding programme had yielded other results, including the employment of over 80,000 cooks and a ready-made market for food crop farmers.
source : punch
