Nigeria’s First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, has called on the National Assembly to create a direct budgetary provision for the Office of the First Lady, citing the absence of federal funding as a barrier to executing impactful social programmes.
Speaking at the second quarterly meeting of the Renewed Hope Initiative (RHI) held Monday at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, the First Lady appealed to her former colleagues in the Senate to legislate and allocate dedicated funds to her office, independent of the Federal Ministry of Women Affairs.
“Most of the resources I use are from well-meaning Nigerians. The government doesn’t fund my office,” she said. “Even if it is N500 million or N1 billion, we can use it for something impactful and be accountable. There should be at least one project we execute yearly, like zonal intervention projects.”
She argued that the Office of the First Lady should not be ceremonial but functional, stressing that it should have the capacity to champion initiatives that directly touch the lives of vulnerable Nigerians.
“I’m not going to go through the Ministry of Women Affairs. I’m going to the Senate,” she said. “A First Lady who wants to do real work should not be restricted.”
Senator Tinubu also launched the RHI Green Nigeria Challenge, an environmental initiative aimed at combating desert encroachment in the northern region. The programme will promote tree planting and environmental conservation across the country.
Additionally, she unveiled the NITDA-RHI Women’s ICT Training Programme for 2025, which targets 240 women — 40 from each geopolitical zone — with digital skills training. Beneficiaries will receive ICT kits and a grant of N80,000 each, with a possible increase to N100,000.
Highlighting her motivation, Tinubu said her goal is to leave office with a legacy of impact. “After this place, I’ll go back to society. I want to see what I can do to make society better,” she stated.
She also decried the contrast between widespread poverty and extravagant spending in the country. “If you see the way we have parties in Nigeria, you wonder, is this a poor nation? We celebrate for a week while our people suffer,” she added.
The First Lady maintained that the efforts of governors’ wives and herself are driven by the need to support their husbands’ mandates and provide a voice for the less privileged.
