Aare Afe Babalola SAN, the founder and chancellor of Afe Babalola University Ado-Ekiti (ABUAD) in Ekiti state has opposed the Federal Government’s home-based school feeding programme which will start on Monday.
Babalola said the proposed programme has failed before even its take-off as the government lacks the requisite data to trace the addresses of the parents of the pupils, the target beneficiaries.
The Senior lawyer proposed that the money earmarked for the programme be channelled into supporting institutions towards acquiring testing machines for treatment of COVID-19 patients.
He said this should be the first task before the new Chief of Staff (COS) to President Muhammadu Buhari, Prof Ibrahim Agboola Gambari.
In a congratulatory message on Thursday to the new COS, Babalola urged him to advise the Presidency to put machinery in motion for the review of the 1999 Constitution, have new measures for post-COVID-19 as well as policies that would ensure local production of home-grown vaccines and drugs to combat the deadly virus.
Aside ensuring individuals with valuable ideas have easy access to the President, Aare Babalola said Gambari’s biggest task should also be how to ensure Federal Government comes up with a people-oriented constitution.
Babalola said: “I have said it repeatedly in the past that the real and main problem Nigeria has today is the military Constitution, which was christened ‘1999 Constitution’ and foisted on us by the military. Unless the 1999 Constitution is properly addressed, jettisoned and replaced with a truly people’s constitution, we shall continue to groan in pain as a nation.”
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