HE Nigeria’s First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, on Monday said that there is no budgetary provision from the central government to run her office and appealed to the National Assembly to provide direct annual funding to the Office of the First Lady to enable it execute one impactful social project per year.
The President wife made this call during the second quarterly meeting of the Renewed Hope Initiative held at the Presidential Villa, Abuja,.
She lamented the limited resources available to her office and emphasised the need for structured government support.
Speaking to journalists at the opening session of the meeting, Mrs. Tinubu appealed to the senate to give legislative backing and financial allocation to the Office of the First Lady for structured project implementation.
She said, “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.
“But I want the Senate, I’m talking to my Senate colleagues now, because my going to the Senate for 12 years shouldn’t be in vain if they are not able to let a First Lady to take a project per year. 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.”
Mrs. Tinubu further said: “I’m going to do this programme like we do zonal intervention programmes, even if it is N500m they want to give us, if it is N1bn, 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. We don’t want to sit in the villa or in the government residences and be eating.
“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 explained that her motivation and those of the wives of the state governors stem from a desire to help her husband succeed, while also advocating for the voiceless and less privileged in society.
“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. And so that is why we went out to make sure that at least we can do—number one, help our husbands succeed, and number two, help the vulnerable amongst us, those who are voiceless,” she said.
She noted that despite Nigeria’s poverty figures, the culture of lavish spending still prevails, which contradicts the image of a poor country.
“Nigeria, we can’t say we are a poor country. We are so blessed with a lot of resources. But we just have to have the right thinking. If you see the way we have parties in Nigeria, you wonder, is this a poor nation? We have parties for a whole week…maybe it started from the palaces of kings in the day…but now individual festivals are going on. And we have to be mindful,” she cautioned.
Insisting on the need for autonomy, Mrs Tinubu explained “We can do more if the resources are there. I’m talking to my colleagues. I believe that the Office of the First Lady should be given the credence. If not a First Lady built this place, would they have an office? Even the military administration knew. They knew how to take care of their wives, because they built this place.”
The First Lady also emphasised the importance of realistic and impactful public welfare interventions, stressing that her office focuses on providing support that is both modest and sustainable.
She argued that, rather than overreaching with grandiose promises, noted that all grants given under her initiative are fully funded, not loans, and are intended to empower recipients to build something tangible with them.
Mrs Tinubu also unveiled the RHI Green Nigeria Challenge, a tree-planting competition aimed at tackling desert encroachment in Nigeria’s north.
She shared her concerns about the visible lack of greenery across northern states, describing vast stretches of dry, treeless land. Drawing inspiration from regions where certain tree species survive in arid conditions, she called for immediate collective action, saying, “I want us to grow trees. I discovered traveling to the North, mainly it’s void of trees. All you see is just dry land. But what I notice also, there are some trees that survive in the North.”
To spur participation, the First Lady announced a series of competitions at various levels. Individual households growing trees could win up to N10m, while communities that collaborate on greening efforts may earn as much as N100m. States will also be assessed, with a N100m grand prize set aside for the top-performing state.
“If it is community, we are looking at N100 million. If it is individual home, we are looking at N10 million,” she noted.
She singled out Enugu State as a model for cleanliness and environmental maintenance: “We are exempting your state, because Enugu is clean and all green. So that is our model state. We are going to be presenting an award to them, and also, you know, some monetary compensation,” said Tinubu.
In addition to the environmental initiative, the First Lady also announced the NITDA-RHI Women’s ICT Training Program for 2025. The scheme targets 240 women from across Nigeria’s six geopolitical zones, with 40 participants per zone.
Each woman will receive a comprehensive digital kit, including a laptop, bag, internet dongle, user manual, and notebook and a grant of N80,000 which, she said, will be reviewed to N100,000 each.
Meanwhile, the First Lady of Kwara State and Chairperson of the Nigeria Governors’ Wives Forum, Prof. Olufolake AbdulRazaq, assured donors and development partners that the interventions are deliberately structured to penetrate the grassroots.
“We get lists from all the local governments right down to the grassroots,” she stated, explaining that every senatorial district is represented, and health programmes are implemented through primary healthcare centers across communities to ensure that no locality is left out.
“That way, we make sure it gets to the absolute indigent in all the states,” she added.
Monday’s stakeholder meeting came three months after the first quarterly meeting of the Renewed Hope Initiative held in March, where she unveiled a N1.85 billion grant initiative aimed at empowering businesspersons with disabilities nationwide.
In attendance were the wife of the Vice President, Nana Shettima, wives of the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the Deputy Senate President and First Ladies of other states.
