Nigeria’s Vice President Kashim Shettima has revealed that the nationwide Home-Grown School Feeding Programme may require a recurring allocation of approximately ₦1 trillion per year to maintain full coverage.
Speaking at the National Policy Forum on the programme’s institutionalisation, hosted by ActionAid Nigeria in Abuja, Shettima—represented by the President’s Special Adviser on Economic Affairs, Dr. Tope Fasua—stressed that the substantial funding is not a cost but a strategic investment with significant social, economic, and security benefits.
The programme, relaunched as the Renewed Hope National Home-Grown School Feeding Project, targets vulnerable and out-of-school children, with a goal of reaching 20 million beneficiaries by 2026. Shettima affirmed that “no Nigerian child should learn on an empty stomach” and highlighted the policy’s dual benefit of supporting local farmers by sourcing food locally.
Describing school feeding as a national security strategy, the Vice President noted that providing a hot meal in classrooms creates a buffer against extremism by reinforcing the state’s presence and delivering hope in regions beset by despair. “If the price of exclusion is insecurity, then the dividend of inclusion is peace,” Shettima asserted.
To ensure sustainability, he called on state governors to adopt the programme through state-level compacts, promote local procurement, and maintain open data for accountability. He also urged the private sector to invest in logistics, processing, and payment technologies to enhance efficiency and create value chains around staple commodity production.
