First Lady Oluremi Tinubu has called on the National Assembly to provide direct funding support for humanitarian and social intervention efforts led by her office and those of state First Ladies, lamenting persistent funding constraints that have hindered outreach to underserved communities across the country.
Speaking on Monday at the second quarterly meeting of the Renewed Hope Initiative (RHI), her flagship social service platform, the First Lady emphasized the importance of structured legislative backing for the initiatives being driven by First Ladies at both the federal and state levels.
“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.
Mrs. Tinubu, who served 12 years in the Senate, made a direct appeal to her former colleagues in the legislature to support a dedicated intervention fund for the Office of the First Lady, modeled after zonal intervention projects.
“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… I’m going to the Senate”, she declared.
According to her, the proposed arrangement would allow First Ladies to access funds responsibly and transparently, saying “even if it is N500 million they want to give us, if it is N1bn, then we are going to use it for this, and then we can be accountable.”
“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 said, stressing that the position of a First Lady should not be reduced to ceremonial appearances.
“We don’t want to sit in the Villa or in the government residences and be eating. It should be with the First Lady who wants to do work. She shouldn’t be restricted”, she added.
Reiterating the broader purpose of the First Ladies’ engagements across the country, Mrs. Tinubu said, “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.”
In a sharp reflection on national priorities, the First Lady urged a shift in mindset about Nigeria’s wealth and spending culture.
“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 said.
Mrs. Tinubu used the occasion to launch the RHI Green Nigeria Challenge, a national tree-planting competition aimed at combating deforestation and halting the desert encroachment ravaging Nigeria’s northern states.
The initiative, she said, was inspired by her travels to the region and her observation of the alarming disappearance of tree cover.
“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,” she explained.
The Green Nigeria Challenge will feature competitions at household, community, and state levels.
Individual households that participate in tree-planting may win up to N10 million, while community efforts could attract prizes up to N100 million.
A N100 million prize will also go to the best-performing state.
“If it is community, we are looking at N100 million. If it is individual home, we are looking at N10 million,” she said.
Enugu State was singled out for praise, with Mrs. Tinubu declaring it a model of environmental cleanliness, saying “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.”
In addition to the environmental initiative, Mrs. Tinubu unveiled the NITDA-RHI Women’s ICT Training Programme for 2025, a digital empowerment scheme targeting 240 women nationwide—40 from each of the six geopolitical zones.
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Each participant will receive a laptop, bag, internet dongle, user manual, notebook, and a grant of N80,000, which she said is being considered for an upward review to N100,000.
Reinforcing the commitment of state First Ladies to grassroots engagement, the First Lady of Kwara State and Chairperson of the Nigeria Governors’ Wives Forum, Prof. Olufolake AbdulRazaq, assured development partners and donors of the structured reach of their interventions.
“We get lists from all the local governments right down to the grassroots. That way, we make sure it gets to the absolute indigent in all the states”, she said, noting that each senatorial district is represented in RHI’s programs.
According to her, most of the health-related projects are run through existing primary healthcare centers to ensure accessibility in remote communities.
Monday’s stakeholder meeting followed the March 2025 inaugural quarterly meeting of the Renewed Hope Initiative, where Mrs. Tinubu had announced a N1.85 billion grant program to empower persons with disabilities in business across the country.
The event was attended by the wife of the Vice President, Hajiya Nana Shettima, the wives of the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the Deputy Senate President, as well as First Ladies from across several Nigerian states.
