A youth has defended the recent remarks by Nigeria’s First Lady, Oluremi Tinubu, over her call for women to engage in petty businesses, insisting that her comments were taken out of context.
Speaking in support of the First Lady, the youth argued that there is dignity in honest labour, saying it is far better to be known as an akara seller, kuli kuli seller or boli seller than to be associated with cr+me or prost+tution.
He said, “Is it not better to be noble than to be doing filthy things? It’s better they know you as an akara seller than to be known as an armed r+bber. It’s better they know you as a kuli kuli seller than to be known as a prost+tute. It’s better they know you as a boli seller than to be tagged as a hookup girl, hookup woman or sugar mummy. We want our mothers to be noble and start something small.”
The speaker also highlighted several humanitarian interventions by the First Lady, arguing that critics had ignored her broader contributions. According to him, aside from the ₦100,000 grants distributed to support women, Senator Tinubu had donated ₦2 billion towards tuberculosis intervention, ₦1 billion to tackle malnutrition and ₦1.5 billion to address the rising burden of cancer.
He stressed that when the First Lady presented ₦100 million grants to states for the empowerment of women, she urged the wives of state governors to contribute additional funds so that more women could benefit.
According to him, the First Lady never instructed beneficiaries to use the grants specifically to sell akara. Rather, he said the funds were intended to support petty businesses, with the choice of enterprise left to each beneficiary.
He maintained that the references to akara and kuli kuli were merely examples of small-scale businesses women could engage in, not directives on how the grants should be used.
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