Three years after its launch, the impact of the Renewed Hope Initiative (RH), a social intervention programme of First Lady Oluremi Tinubu, is visible across the country. However, there are questions around its modus operandi and the long-term sustainability of its activities, TERHEMBA DAKA writes.
Three years after its launch, the Renewed Hope Initiative (RHI) has grown from an emergency relief platform into a broad social intervention programme spanning healthcare, education, economic empowerment, agriculture and social investment.
Its expansion has brought the initiative and its founder, Nigeria’s First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, increasing public attention, while also raising questions about its impact, funding, accountability and the place of the Office of the First Lady within Nigeria’s constitutional and governance framework.
From support for victims of floods, insurgency and communal violence to grants and productive assets for women, scholarships for indigent students, healthcare interventions and welfare assistance for elderly citizens, the RHI has established a significant footprint in Nigeria’s social intervention landscape.
However, three years into its operation, the more important question is no longer how much the initiative has done or how many people it says it has reached. It is whether the model represents a sustainable approach to social intervention, whether its impact can be independently measured and whether the structures being developed can survive the administration that created them.
A New Chapter In A Familiar Tradition
THE Office of the First Lady has no executive powers or statutory responsibilities under the Nigerian constitution. Yet presidential spouses have historically used the visibility attached to the office to promote social causes and intervene in areas of public concern.
The tradition dates back to several decades. The late Maryam Babangida’s Better Life for Rural Women programme in the late 1980s focused attention on rural women and economic empowerment. Maryam Abacha championed the National Hospital for Women and Children in Abuja, while Stella Obasanjo focused on children living with disabilities through the Child Care Trust. Turai Yar’Adua promoted specialised cancer care through the National Cancer Centre project, while Aisha Buhari’s Future Assured Foundation concentrated on maternal health, nutrition and women’s empowerment.
These programmes demonstrated how the visibility of presidential spouses could be deployed to draw attention to social issues. However, many were also closely associated with their founders and faced questions about continuity once the occupants of the Presidential Villa changed.
A senior Presidential Villa official, who requested anonymity, told The Guardian that continuity had historically been a major challenge.
“Many of these projects are personality-driven instead of policy-driven. Once the occupant of the office leaves, the programme often loses momentum,” the official said.
It is against this backdrop that the RHI’s three-year record is now being assessed.
From Relief To Broader Intervention
THE Renewed Hope Initiative was officially launched on June 24, 2023, shortly after President Bola Ahmed Tinubu assumed office. The initiative was structured around five broad pillars – agriculture, education, health, economic empowerment and social investment – and conceived as a complement to the President’s Renewed Hope Agenda.
Unlike some earlier First Lady-led programmes built around a single dominant cause, the RHI has adopted a multi-sector approach. Its interventions combine emergency assistance with programmes intended to improve livelihoods and expand access to social and economic opportunities. The organisation says its programmes now cover all 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, with interventions extending to communities across Nigeria’s 774 local councils.
It has also reported reaching more than 40 million households through partnerships with government institutions, development organisations and private-sector stakeholders.
According to publicly available figures attributed to the initiative, more than N100 billion had been mobilised in grants, donations, direct interventions and multi-year commitments between its launch in 2023 and April 2026. The figures are substantial, although their significance ultimately depends on the methodology used to determine beneficiaries, the nature of the commitments and independent assessment of outcomes.
Emergency Response
SOME of the RHI’s most visible interventions have come during moments of national crisis. Barely days after its inaugural meeting in July 2023, the initiative responded to the Trademore Estate flood disaster in Lugbe, Abuja, with financial support for affected families. The intervention established a pattern that has continued during subsequent emergencies.
Following a tanker explosion in Niger State, Senator Tinubu donated N100 million to support the victims and affected families. After the killings in Yelewata and Daudu communities of Benue State, she visited survivors and announced a N1 billion intervention for rehabilitation and recovery.
In Borno State, the initiative has provided assistance to victims of insurgency, widows and orphans of fallen security personnel, alongside support for communities affected by flooding. Internally displaced persons in Plateau State have also benefited from RHI interventions.
Such responses have given the initiative a high public profile, particularly in situations where humanitarian needs have outpaced the immediate capacity of formal institutions.
The challenge, however, is whether emergency assistance can translate into sustainable recovery.
Women And Economic Empowerment
ECONOMIC empowerment has become one of the most prominent areas of RHI activity. Working with partners, including the Tony Elumelu Foundation, the initiative has supported 18,500 women entrepreneurs with business grants. Other beneficiaries have received productive assets such as grinding machines, gas cookers, ovens and deep freezers to support small businesses.
Female farmers, traders, artisans and other small-scale entrepreneurs have also received grants, equipment and agricultural inputs. The underlying rationale is that strengthening women’s economic capacity can have wider implications for household income, children’s welfare and community resilience. For the RHI, therefore, the objective has been to move beyond one-off charity towards interventions capable of supporting income generation. Whether beneficiaries are able to sustain the businesses created through the programme, however, remains a critical measure of its long-term effectiveness.
Education And Human Capital
EDUCATION has emerged as another important component of the initiative. The RHI has supported schools with books and other educational materials and established a scholarship programme for indigent students. Since its inception, 47 students in state-owned tertiary institutions have reportedly benefited from the national scholarship programme. The initiative has also pursued digital inclusion and skills development through partnerships with technology institutions and other stakeholders.
The interventions reflect a broader recognition that educational inequality is no longer limited to access to schools and classrooms but increasingly includes access to technology and digital skills.
For beneficiaries, the immediate value may be financial or material assistance. For policymakers, however, the longer-term test is whether such interventions contribute measurably to improved educational outcomes.
Healthcare And Social Protection
HEALTHCARE has also become central to the RHI’s activities. In 2024, Senator Tinubu donated N1 billion to the National Cancer Fund, drawing renewed attention to cancer awareness, prevention and treatment. In 2025, she declared tuberculosis a national emergency, seeking to raise awareness about the continuing burden of the disease and the implications of declining international donor support.
Maternal and child healthcare programmes have included the distribution of delivery kits to frontline health workers serving rural and underserved communities. Other interventions have included medical outreach, HIV/AIDS advocacy and support for persons with disabilities.
The initiative’s Food Outreach Scheme, under its Social Investment Programme, provides food assistance to vulnerable groups, including persons with disabilities, in communities across the country.
Another component that has received less public attention is its welfare programme for elderly citizens, retired military personnel and retired police officers. The programme provides food, healthcare and welfare assistance to older Nigerians, including people who spent decades in public service.
For a country facing increasing pressure on social protection systems, such interventions address a significant gap, although questions remain about their scale, sustainability and relationship with formal government welfare programmes.
The Partnership Model
ONE of the features distinguishing the RHI from conventional charity programmes is its emphasis on partnerships. The initiative works with federal ministries and agencies, state governments, governors’ wives, development partners, private-sector organisations and philanthropic groups.
Among the institutions associated with various interventions of the RHI are the Federal Ministry of Health and Social Welfare, Bank of Industry, National Agricultural Development Fund, National Information Technology Development Agency and Federal Ministry of Environment.
International development partners have also been involved in some of the programmes. The partnership approach enables the initiative to mobilise resources beyond what would ordinarily be available to a privately funded charitable organisation. It also allows programmes to be implemented through existing government and community structures. But partnership-based funding introduces its own accountability questions, particularly around donor disclosure, governance, expenditure and monitoring.
Thus, the growing visibility of the RHI has inevitably generated criticism. The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), among other groups, has questioned what it considers the expanding overlap between activities associated with the First Lady and the statutory responsibilities of government ministries and agencies.
The organisation has argued that large-scale humanitarian and social protection interventions should primarily be implemented through constitutionally established institutions subject to statutory funding, legislative oversight and public accountability.
HURIWA has also called for greater transparency over the RHI’s sources of funding, governance arrangements, audited accounts and expenditure. It has argued that regular disclosure of donations and spending, supported by independent audits, would strengthen public confidence. The organisation has further raised concerns about possible conflicts of interest where corporate organisations supporting the initiative operate in sectors regulated by the Federal Government.
Other governance advocates and opposition figures have similarly questioned the expanding public role of the First Lady. Their argument is not necessarily that the interventions lack value, but that private or philanthropic initiatives should complement rather than substitute government-led social protection programmes.
Nevertheless, Senator Tinubu has consistently rejected suggestions that the initiative is financed through public funds.
“The Office of the First Lady has no constitutional allocation,” she has maintained, explaining that resources deployed through the initiative are mobilised through partnerships and individuals who share its humanitarian objectives.
Her Special Adviser on Media, Busola Kukoyi, has described the RHI as a Corporate Affairs Commission-registered non-governmental organisation governed by a board of Nigerians and funded through voluntary contributions from private sector organisations, philanthropists and other individuals. The explanation places the initiative outside the formal budgetary structure of the Federal Government.
Beyond Numbers
THE RHI’s reported figures are significant. More than 40 million households have reportedly been reached through its various programmes and partnerships, while more than N100 billion has reportedly been mobilised in interventions and commitments. Yet statistics alone cannot determine whether the programme is achieving lasting social impact. The more revealing questions are what happens after the intervention.
Can a woman who receives business equipment sustain her enterprise? Can a farmer who receives agricultural inputs improve productivity over several seasons? Can a young person who receives digital training secure sustainable employment? Can an elderly beneficiary move from periodic assistance to a more secure social protection system? Can families affected by conflict or natural disasters rebuild their livelihoods after the initial relief has ended?
Those questions point to the need for independent impact assessments that go beyond counting beneficiaries or calculating money disbursed. The history of First Lady-led initiatives in Nigeria shows that visibility and resources can produce significant short-term results, but sustaining those gains beyond the tenure of their founders is considerably more difficult.
For the RHI, institutionalisation will therefore be critical. Durable partnerships, transparent governance, verifiable impact measurement and sustainable funding could determine whether the initiative becomes a lasting social intervention model or another programme closely associated with the tenure of its founder.
As it enters its fourth year, expectations are consequently shifting from questions of reach to questions of impact. The first three years have established the breadth of the initiative. The next phase will determine its depth and staying power. That, ultimately, may provide the most objective measure of Senator Oluremi Tinubu’s three-year social intervention record and whether the RHI represents a temporary feature of the Tinubu administration or a more enduring model for the role of Nigeria’s First Lady.
If the RHI succeeds in mobilising resources, filling humanitarian gaps and drawing attention to neglected social problems without weakening statutory institutions, its model could offer useful lessons for future administrations. If, on the other hand, its programmes remain heavily dependent on the personality and networks of the incumbent First Lady, it may face the same continuity problem that affected several predecessors.
