- By Tajudeen Kareem and Wale Ojo-Lanre
What does Remi Tinubu want? It is a simple question, yet profound. A question that in ordinary times might be dismissed as impertinent, but in today’s Nigeria it is not only valid — it is necessary.
In a country where First Ladies have to often been judged by the splendour of their wardrobe, the aura of their retinue, or the drama of their utterances, Senator Oluremi Tinubu has chosen to tread a different path. She has turned her tenure not into a showcase of power, but into a gallery of compassion, a mosaic of interventions, a chronicle of service.
In asking what she wants, we begin to see more clearly what she gives.
When in 2023 she launched the Renewed Hope Initiative, RHI, many thought it would be another ornamental project, an appendage designed for photo opportunities. Instead, what unfolded was a full-scale social intervention platform, anchored on five thematic pillars — agriculture, education, health, economic empowerment, and social investment.
Registered as a non-governmental organisation, RHI was conceived not as a government programme, but as a bridge, a complement, and a catalyst. Its stated target was to touch lives, especially of women, children, youth, and the vulnerable. And touch lives it has.
The momentum began in March 2024, when Mrs. Tinubu formally launched the Food Outreach Programme in Abuja. It was not a one-off charity. It was a structured, state-by-state, month-by-month distribution of food items to vulnerable households, persons with disabilities, widows, and the forgotten poor.
The funding came not from the federal treasury but from private sources, notably the Abdul Samad Rabiu Africa Initiative and anonymous benefactors. By October, the outreach had arrived Ekiti State, and by December it had warmed the hearts of elderly citizens in Edo State, with 250 elders each receiving N250,000, food items, and free health checks.
The programme is still rolling, moving from state to state, as predictable as the sunrise, delivering hope in bags of rice, beans, and oil.
But food was only the first chapter. In April 2024, the First Lady turned her eyes to the soil. She launched an agricultural empowerment scheme for Southwest women, handing N500,000 grants to 20 women farmers in each state — Ogun, Lagos, Oyo, Ekiti, Osun, and Ondo. One hundred and twenty women walked home with funds and farm inputs, and with them the possibility of scaling up from subsistence to commercial farming. The model soon spread to the Southeast and North-central, where similar groups of women were empowered.
In Cross River, 320 women and youths were supported and 30 Young Farmers Clubs established. In Delta, 400 farmers were given inputs and grants. In Enugu, 400 women and youths were trained and equipped. In Ondo, through partnership with the Tony Elumelu Foundation, 500 women petty traders received N50,000 each. Agriculture, once a forgotten sector for women, suddenly found itself in the embrace of Remi Tinubu’s vision.
She understood that identity is as critical as food. So on August 29, 2024, she launched a partnership with UNICEF and the National Population Commission to accelerate birth registration. For children born between August and December 2024, commemorative certificates were issued, symbolising a new era where no Nigerian child should grow up without legal identity. “Our children must have their rights and privileges guaranteed from the very beginning,” she said, and with those words, the faceless millions of unregistered births began to find their names written into the book of the nation.
In education, her passion has been relentless. In 2024, RHI distributed 50,000 exercise books in each state, totalling over two million across the country. In January 2025, she awarded 5,100 bursaries to female students in partnership with the Federal Ministry of Education, gave out millions more exercise books, and launched the creation of 40 Alternative High Schools for Girls — second-chance schools for teenagers derailed by early pregnancy or child marriage.
She launched the “Flow with Confidence” programme to supply menstrual pads to rural girls, aiming to reduce school absenteeism caused by monthly cycle.
The healthcare front has been equally transformed. In January, she unveiled the distribution of 60,000 professional kits for midwives and nurses, equipping them with scrubs, shoes, and dignity. This was not just about uniforms; it was about morale, recognition, and the silent but powerful message that those who save lives deserve to be valued.
In April, she repeated the gesture in the Southwest, giving 10,000 kits, while simultaneously launching the “Free to Shine” campaign — a continental initiative aimed at eliminating mother-to-child transmission of HIV, syphilis, and hepatitis. By June, she carried this crusade to the Southeast, standing shoulder to shoulder with other African First Ladies to fight diseases that steal futures before they begin. In Bayelsa State, RHI organised free medical outreach in Otuasega, bringing doctors and medicine to a community that had long been neglected.
Creativity was not left out. In February, Mrs. Tinubu pledged N100 million to the Five Cowries Art Education Initiative, designed to support 5,000 art exhibitions and expand cultural clubs across Nigeria. By this, she reminded us of Pablo Picasso’s timeless truth: “Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life.” Where many see art as luxury, she saw it as essential, as education for the heart.
Economic empowerment continued to be a steady rhythm. In April, 200 women in textile production received 400 bales of African fabric, while 1,000 petty traders in Ondo State shared N50 million, helping them to stabilise their businesses and feed their families.
And then, in July came the thunderclap. Through the Renewed Hope Initiative, the First Lady announced a N1 billion donation to victims of violence in Plateau State. She was quick to clarify: not a kobo from government funds, but resources mobilised privately. It was a gesture of scale and substance, signalling that compassion can be organised at the level of billions, not just thousands.
In less than two years, the Renewed Hope Initiative has reportedly reached over 40 million households. It has fed the hungry, clothed the healthcare worker, lifted the farmer, equipped the trader, empowered the girl, dignified the elder, registered the nameless child, and inspired the artist. It has stretched its hands into every geopolitical zone, leaving behind testimonies of lives touched and burdens eased.
So, what does Remi Tinubu want?
Certainly, our First Lady wants a Nigeria where no child grows up without identity, where no girl is denied education because of pregnancy, where no mother dies in childbirth, where no family goes hungry, where art and culture flourish, and where women have the resources to farm, trade, create, and thrive.
She wants to redefine the office of the First Lady — from ceremonial glamour to practical grace, from passive presence to active impact, from mere symbolism to enduring substance.
History will remember her not for the gowns she wore, nor the banquets she attended, but for the footprints of grace she left across Nigeria’s soil.
Her journey is not separate from the vision of her husband, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu; it is in harmony with it. The president speaks of a Renewed Hope Agenda, of reviving the nation’s economy, of empowering its people, of uniting its diversity under a banner of progress.
The First Lady, in her own lane, has translated that vision into the intimate language of households — bags of food in the kitchens of widows, bursaries in the hands of schoolgirls, scrubs on the backs of nurses, and identity certificates in the names of new-born children.
To borrow the words of Mother Teresa: “Not all of us can do great things, but we can do small things with great love.” Remi Tinubu, through her Renewed Hope Initiative, has done both great things and small things, but always with great love. And that, perhaps, is all she really wants — a Nigeria where love, service, and hope are renewed every day.
•Kareem and Ojo-Lanre are veteran journalists.
