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 too 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 ₦250,000, 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 South-West women, handing ₦500,000 grants to twenty 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 South-East 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 ₦50,000 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 2
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 2025,
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 2025, she repeated the gesture in the South-West, 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
2025, she carried this crusade to the South-East, 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 2025, Mrs. Tinubu pledged
₦100 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 2025,
200 women in textile production received 400 bales of African fabric,
while 1,000 petty traders in Ondo State shared ₦50 million, helping
them to stabilise their businesses and feed their families.
And then, in July 2025, came the thunderclap. Through the Renewed Hope
Initiative, the First Lady announced a ₦1 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.
And so when we ask, “What does Remi Tinubu want?” the answer becomes
clear. She wants to leave behind a Nigeria touched by her compassion,
transformed by her vision, and inspired by her deeds. And truly, that
is the noblest want of all.
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 newborn children.
Where the President’s Renewed Hope Agenda paints the broad strokes of
national policy, Remi Tinubu’s Renewed Hope Initiative colours in the
details of daily life. Together, they are not two parallel roads, but
one journey, one symphony of governance and compassion.
In our estimation, her interventions remind us that power can be
graceful, that leadership can be tender, and that service, whether
from the seat of the President or the heart of the First Lady, must
always be about the people.
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.
And when the pages of history are written, her name will not just
appear as “wife of the President” but as a woman who took the power of
proximity and converted it into the power of compassion.
She will be remembered as the First Lady who refused to sit idly in
splendour, but rose in grace to change lives.
She will be remembered not as an appendage to her husband’s legacy,
but as a partner in building it, ensuring that the promise of Renewed
Hope was not just a policy document but a daily reality in homes
across Nigeria.
And when that day comes, the answer to the question, “What does Remi
Tinubu want?” will be simple: she wanted, and still wants, nothing
more than a better Nigeria — and she worked, with love and with grace,
to make it so.
*Kareem and Ojo-Lanre are veteran journalists.
