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From Juliana Taiwo-Obalonye, Abuja
The First Lady of Nigeria, Oluremi Tinubu has charged wives of governors to work for peace and stability of Nigeria, urging them to remain steadfast and supportive of one another.
She gave the charge during her first meeting with governors wives in 2024 at the State House Abuja under the umbrella of the Renewed Hope Initiative (RHI). There were over 25 of them in attendance.
In a statement issued by her media aide, Busola Kukoyi, the First Lady, praised the spouses of the governors for their work in their respective states, particularly in easing the hardships brought on by the elimination of the fuel subsidy, and urged them to step up their efforts.
She reminded her guests that the Mission of the Renewed Hope Initiative driven by her office, is to complement the efforts of the administration of President Bola Tinubu, “Towards a Better Life for Families.”
According to Mrs. Tinubu, 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 equi
A raffle was conducted where 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 harmonise and restructure these special intervention schools”, she said.
The First Lady clarified that the school will provide girls who had dropped out to earn a living for themselves or their children due to pregnancy, domestic abuse, drug addiction, or other reasons, the chance to go back to school.
At the meeting, it was also disclosed that the Renewed Hope Initiative RHI, will be distributing 1,950,000 exercise books to Public Primary and Junior Secondary Schools across the Nation.
The exercise books, which Mrs. Tinubu said are already being produced, will be given to each State through the RHI Coordinator/First Lady of the state to the SUBEB Chairman for distribution to the students through the Local Government Education Authority.
She said Lagos and Kano will be getting 100,000 exercise books each, while 50,000 exercise books each will be given to other States and FCT.
Mrs. Tinubu 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 each and a total draft of N10 million will be given to five RHI State Coordinators/First Ladies 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 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. Mrs. Tinubu pointed out that this would encourage food production among the youth tagged #Food on Every table.
She appealed to the governor’s wives to take ownership of the scheme and encourage it as much as possible.
