By Ademola Adegbite, Ibadan

THE Oyo State Coordinator of School Feeding programme of the Federal Government, Mrs. Toyosi Ajobo, yesterday, lamented the high rate of poverty in Nigeria, saying the situation had forced many pupils to take their food home for their siblings.

She made this known during a Nationwide Documentation and Training of Cooks on the National Home Grown School Feeding Programme, organized by the Federal Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs, Disaster Management and Social Development, held in Ibadan.

Mrs. Ajobo said the school feeding programme was initiated by the government as a way of tackling the effect of the high level of poverty in Nigeria.

“We are over 3000 in Oyo state but 66 were selected. That means, two from each local government. So, we are expected to go back home and train people. We are trained on the ways to prepare food for the kids. We were also trained on the ways to buy perishable and other ingredients. We were also trained to always dress neat and prepare good food.

“We thank God there is no more corona virus in the country. In the year 2020, we didn’t work at all. In 2021, we only worked twice for the whole year. Many children have stopped coming to school since we have stopped the school feeding programme. It also affected our personal economy. We are now appealing to the Federal Government to pay Oyo state vendors so as to continue with our work.

“Even as we are not taking food to school, we are still going to inspect those children. Our discovery is that many of these children are not coming to school again. For you to know the rate of poverty in the country, when we started the programme, there was a baby who did not see egg before let alone eating it. Some take the food we gave to them to their respective homes for their siblings to share with them.”

Also speaking, the Resource Person in charge of the state, Olufemi Abayomi Falepita said the programme was organised to train the vendors on the right way to prepare food for the pupils.