First Lady seeks collaboration among Wives of Governors

Timothy Choji, Abuja

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Nigeria’s First Lady, Oluremi Tinubu, has called on wives of governors to remain steadfast and supportive of one another.

She was speaking during the meeting she had with them at the State House Abuja on Monday, under the umbrella of her programme, the Renewed Hope Initiative.

The First Lady while commending them for their efforts in their various states especially to ameliorate the current hardships occasioned by the removal of the fuel subsidy on petrol, appealed to them to intensify their efforts.

She said: “As we all know, the Mission of the Renewed Hope Initiative which is driven by my office, to complement the efforts of the administration of our President, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu is “Towards a Better Life for Families.”

Mrs Tinubu disclosed that there would be the launch of the “We Are Equal; We Are the Same Campaign,” an initiative of the Organization of African First Ladies for Development, OAFLAD geared towards women empowerment, promoting economic growth and advance gender equity.

At Monday’s meeting, Osun State was picked as the place where the campaign would be flagged off.

“I will be re-introducing the Alternative High School for Girls. It will interest you to know that some States already have similar programmes named ‘second chance schools’. We are going to reach out to the Federal Ministry of Education to help us harmonize and restructure these special intervention schools,” she said.

Mrs Tinubu explained that the schools would give girls who had dropped out of school due to pregnancy, domestic violence, child trafficking, drug addiction and other reasons, the opportunity to return to the classroom and make a living for themselves.

At the meeting, it was also disclosed that the Renewed Hope Initiative (RHI), will be distributing One Million, Nine Hundred and Fifty Thousand (1,950,000) Exercise Books to Public Primary and Junior Secondary Schools across the Nation.

The exercise books which are already being produced will be given to each State through the RHI Coordinator in each State, (First Lady of the state) to the State Universal Basic Education Board Chairmen for distribution to the students through the Local Government Education Authority.

The First Lady stated that the RHI will flag off the “Renewed Hope Initiative Women Agricultural Support Programmes (WASP)” in Imo State on the 28th of February, 2024.

She explained that women farmers would get N500,000.00 each and a total draft of Ten Million Naira (N10,000,000) will be given to five (5) RHI State Coordinators as the case may be.

In addition, the National Agricultural Land Development Authority, (NALDA) in partnership with the Renewed Hope Initiative (RHI) will support additional eighty (80) women farmers from each State with the provision of training and capacity building, agricultural inputs and buy off all produce from the farms after harvest.

The highlight of the meeting was the unveiling of the proposed Young Farmers Club for Public Schools in each state of the Federation with the proposed uniforms for members.

This is the first meeting of the First Lady with the wives of State Governors in 2024 and over 25 of them were in attendance.

 

 

 

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