The Renewed Hope Initiative and Its Impacts: A Pet Project of Nigeria’s First Lady

The Renewed Hope Initiative is the pet project of Nigeria’s first lady, Mrs., Oluremi Tinubu.  This is following similar pet projects conceived and implemented by wives of Nigeria’s past presidents.

Such programmes are specially targeted at the empowerment of women and children.

In the past, wives of Nigeria’s presidents initiated programmes like Better Life for Rural Women by Mrs. Maryam Babangida; Family Support Programme by Mrs. Maryam Abacha; Child Care Trust by Mrs. Stella Obasanjo and the Women and Youth Empowerment Foundation by Mrs. Turai Yar’Adua, among others.

When President Bola Ahmed Tinubu assumed office on May 29, 2023, his wife, Mrs. Oluremi Tinubu introduced the Renewed Hope Initiative, which seeks to project the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Tinubu’s administration.

The Renewed Hope Initiative is devoted to making life better for not just women but millions of households in Nigeria.

Explaining the idea behind the project, Mrs. Tinubu said that the Renewed Hope Initiative is focused on ensuring that all families receive the attention and comfort they deserve under President Tinubu’s administration in Nigeria. At her meeting with the wives of governors of Nigeria’s 36 states, where she presented the project, the First Lady, requested their support to achieve the goal of reaching out to families and improving their livelihood across the country.

As part of her empowerment programme for women in agriculture, the First Lady launched and supported twenty women farmers with 500, 000 Naira each in Abeokuta, Ogun State.  This was replicated in the other five states of Lagos, Oyo, Ondo, Ogun and Osun in South West Nigeria.

Nigerians living with disabilities (PWD) were not left out in the First Lady’s Renewed Hope Initiative when one hundred PWDs got N100,000 each to recapitalize their existing businesses and possibly expand.

Mrs Tinubu’s interventions are being replicated in other geo-political zones of the country to make the needed impact on citizens’ lives and strengthen their competencies for the desired skills development.

The Renewed Hope Initiative collaborates with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security to empower more women and young farmers in line with the food security implementation strategy for farmers under the Renewed Hope Agenda programme.

Many women and children have also benefited from the interventions of the initiative in the educational sector with the Alternative School for Girl Child programme.

At the launch of the programme, Mrs. Tinubu said that it would provide safe and inclusive learning environment for girls that were forced out of school due to poverty, early marriage and stigma associated with unwanted pregnancy or illness. This is in recognition that investing in girls’ education is crucial for promoting gender equality, economic growth as well as breaking the circle of poverty in Nigerian families.

The Renewed Hope Initiative focuses on safeguarding virtues among women and girls in Nigeria. This speaks to decent dressing and imbibing the Nigerian culture of inculcating lasting virtues on children, especially the girl child.

Indeed, the pet project of the first lady compliments the efforts of President Tinubu in the areas of education, agriculture, social investment and economic empowerment among women in Nigeria.

The buy-in of wives of governors in Nigeria’s 36 states is expected to fast track the success of the intervention by monitoring and complimenting these interventions and welfare packages to avoid diversion of such products and funding.  This is necessary to ensure their impacts are felt by the targeted beneficiaries in the society.

Nigerian girls and women should take advantage of the unique opportunities offered by the initiative to enhance their capacities and expand their reach.  The project planned to cover the disadvantaged communities in the near future should be supported by all to accelerate the realization of the goals of President Bola Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Agenda for Nigerians.