Senator Oluremi Tinubu, Nigeria’s First Lady, has appealed to the National Assembly to make direct financial provisions for the Office of the First Lady, citing the absence of budgetary support from the federal government.
Speaking on Monday at the second quarterly meeting of the Renewed Hope Initiative (RHI) held at the Presidential Villa, Abuja, Tinubu said the lack of funding limits her office’s capacity to implement impactful social projects.
She called on her former colleagues in the Senate to provide legislative and financial support for her office, independent of the ministry of women affairs.
Her words: “Most of the resources I used to work are just given to me by well-meaning Nigerians.
“It is whatever they give to me that I have to distribute to the First Ladies of various states. It’s difficult. So the government doesn’t run my office. I do a lot of collaboration, which you will see.”
She said the office of the First Lady should be empowered to execute at least one impactful project annually, structured like zonal intervention programmes.
She said: “I’m not going to go through the ministry of women affairs, because they used to put money there in the day, but like they do in the states, I’m going to the Senate.
“Even if it is N500 million or N1 billion, then we are going to use it for this, and then we can be accountable. It should be with the First Lady who wants to do work. She shouldn’t be restricted.”
Tinubu insisted the office should not be ceremonial, saying she is committed to returning to society as someone who made a difference.
“The point for me is this — after this place, I’m going to go back into society. I want to see what I can do to make society better,” she stated.
She said her motivation, and that of other governors’ wives, is to help their husbands succeed and provide a voice for the vulnerable.
“We are wives. Whatever name we call ourselves, either a domestic engineer or whatever, we want to see our husbands succeed.
“Because you see, they are the trees and that tree has to stand strong… we can do more if the resources are there,” she said.
She criticised the contrast between Nigeria’s poverty rates and its culture of lavish spending.
“If you see the way we have parties in Nigeria, you wonder, is this a poor nation? We have parties for a whole week… we have to be mindful.”
The First Lady also unveiled a major environmental project, the RHI Green Nigeria Challenge. a tree-planting competition targeting desert encroachment in the North.
She also launched the NITDA-RHI Women’s ICT Training Programme for 2025, which will train 240 women, 40 from each geopolitical zone, and equip them with digital kits and N80,000 grants, which she said may be increased to N100,000.
