KANO (North-West, Nigeria) — Food vendors contracted by the Kano State government for the Ramadan feeding program said the initiative is not only providing meals for thousand people daily but also creating employment opportunities for over 500 youths across the state.
The food vendors disclosed this while receiving the government’s Ramadan feeding monitoring team during inspection visits to the kitchens where the meals were prepared for onward distribution to the designated centers across the state.
The owner of Ten to Ten Restaurant, Sa’a Adau said she engaged the services of over 240 adhoc staff for efficient service delivery of the program.
She added that the program has also boosted economic activities among traders in the state who supply food items and other ingredients in large quantity.
According to her, “on daily basis, we prepare and distribute foods for 25,000 people. The food is distributed across 25 centers. In each center, 1,000 pack of food is distributed.
“This Ramadan feeding program has boosted the economy of traders and also created employments. For this program, we have over 240 adhoc staff. The program has multiplier effects as the impact is visible in the happiness of the workers who constantly pray for the Governor,” Adau said.
Similarly, the Chief Executive Officer, CEO of Meena Event Centre, Bilkisu Bako who spoke through her Catering Manager, Ina Zein, said the feeding programme has created jobs across different segments of the kitchen workforce, including cooks, packers, cleaners and supervisors.
“We have so many workers employed. Apart from those who cook, who do everything in the kitchen, we have the packers here. We have the cleaners, we have the supervisors. Every group has a supervisor. And then the supervisors have another supervisor. So, we are doing our best to produce very clean, very quality food. Because we know, in the Quran it says, we should give out what we ourselves could eat. And that is what we are trying to do here. We are doing our best that the people who receive the food will open the package and then say, this is good food, this is what I like to eat. And if I eat it for Iftar, it is good. Maybe I can also eat it again for Sahur. So, we are trying to make a food that is lasting also. And about the ingredients, I think when you enter, maybe you could perceive, every day when we come, we can perceive the beautiful smell with all the ingredients of what is going inside the food.
“So, for the Ramadan feeding, Meena, who had already a huge amount of staff, of about 300 employees, had to add so that we can keep up with the 25,000 packs a day. We have employed about 250 extra people who are now all wearing Meena T-shirts, as you can see them. We want them to identify with us in this month. We want us to all work together. We are all the same. The sweepers, drivers, cooks, packers are wearing the same T-shirt, we are all one. We are all working together for this project, making it successful,” Zein stated.
The head incharge of packaging team in Meena Event Centre, Avong Shem said many of the youths engaged for the exercise would have remained idled during the fasting period.
“Because most of us during Ramadan, we don’t have anything to do. We stay at home. He has taken that idleness away from us and has engaged us. So we are so grateful. He has provided jobs by this. He has engaged us by giving us work in this Ramadan season. As you can see, a lot of us, he has engaged us by giving a prestigious company this Ramadan packaging,” Shem said.
The Commissioner for Religious Affairs and Chairman of the Kano State Ramadan Feeding Committee 2026, Ahmed Tijjani commended the food vendors for maintaining high standards of hygiene and quality in the preparation of the meals, while urging them to sustain the tempo as the program moves into the last 10 days of Ramadan, noting that their performance would influence future engagements.
“We are satisfied with the quality and quantity of the meals as well as the hygiene standards. We want to recommend to them that they should keep the tempo. They should not slow down. Because we are moving towards the last 10 days of Ramadan. So at times, people tend to have relaxed habit of, Ramadan is going, so let me relax.
“So we are calling on them not to relax. Because we are going to use these 10 days to recommend for the next year’s Ramadan feeding. The companies that perform best in these last 10 days, we are going to recommend, inshallah. And I know my governor will double this effort, inshallah,” the Commissioner, Tijjani said.
Meanwhile, the over N4 billion Ramadan feeding was rolled out by the Kano State government to feed 110,000 people daily across 115 centres within 8 metropolitan local government areas of the state.
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