The First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, has assured Nigerian women farmers of N500,000.00 each and a total draft of Ten Million Naira (N10,000,000) to be given to five (5) Renewed Hope Initiative, RHI State Coordinators.
The president’s wife also said the National Agricultural Land Development Authority (NALDA( in partnership with the RHI, would 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.
Senator Tinubu made the disclosure Monday at a meeting with wives of governors under the umbrella of the Renewed Hope Initiative, at the State House Abuja.
While pledging to re-introduce alternative high school for girls, she said, “it will 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 eke a living for themselves.”
She said some states already had similar programmes named ‘second chance schools’.
The former lawmaker, who called on wives of governors to remain steadfast and supportive of one another, commended them for their efforts towards ameliorating the hardships in their various states, as occasioned by the removal of the fuel subsidy, urging them to intensify same.
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 and Commander-in-Chief, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, GCFR is ‘Towards a Better Life for Families’.”
Mrs Tinubu also said plans were on to launch “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.”
The campaign would be flagged off in Osun state.
Speaking further, Mrs Tinubu said: “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.”
The meeting also agreed that the RHI would distribute One Million, Nine Hundred and Fifty Thousand (1,950,000) Exercise Books to Public Primary and Junior Secondary Schools across the country.
The exercise books, she said, would be given to each state through the RHI Coordinator/First Lady of the state to the SUBEB chairmen for onward distribution to the students through the Local Government Education Authority.
A statement issued by Busola Kukoyi, Special Adviser to the First Lady on media, explained that “Lagos and Kano will be getting 100,000 exercise books each, while 50,000 exercise books will be given to other States and FCT.”
Also, she said the RHI would flag off the “Renewed Hope Initiative Women Agricultural Support Programmes (WASP) in Imo state February 28, 2024.
“The First Lady 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/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 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 statement said.
A major 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, Tinubu’s wife believed, “will encourage food production among the youth tagged #Food on Every table.”
She then appealed to the governors’ wives to take ownership of the scheme and also encourage it to achieve the desired impact.
