Nigeria @ 60:Aisha Buhari Breaking New Grounds

The Nigerian First Lady, Aisha Buhari have redefined the Office of the First Lady. As part of her contribution to national development, her pet project Future Assured has been the source of succor for the less privileged, women and the girl child


Her Excellency, Mrs Aisha Buhari, wife of President Muhammadu Buhari will go down in history as one of the greatest First Lady that impacted the lives of Nigerian women and the girl child. Focused, tenacious, and imbued with a heart of human kindness, the First Lady is very concerned about the legacies her husband’s administration will leave on the sands of time.

Mrs Buhari is a vocal advocate of woman rights and children’s rights, who has on several occasions emphasized on the need for young girls to get primary and secondary education before delving into marital life. In here view, no girl should contemplate getting married until she is 17 years old and above. While attending a global women conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina in 2015, the first lady harped on the need for the Nigerian government to make laws that will protect the women from early marriages, sex trafficking and other contending issues confronting the girl child and women in the society.

Aisha Buhari’s outspokenness and fearlessness is part of what has endeared her to most Nigerians. She is always on the side of the people. She hates injustice and speaks out whenever it is perceived to have been done. In 2016 when it appeared her husband, President Buhari was losing grip of his administration to some hawks, Mrs Buhari threatened that she won’t back her husband’s second term bid unless he got grip on his government. To this, a surprised President Buhari responded, saying that she belongs to his kitchen. “I don’t know which party she belongs to, but I know she belongs to my kitchen, and my living room and the other room”, the president said.

As part of her contribution to national development, Mrs. Buhari at the side event of the United Nations General Assembly in September 29, 2015, launched her pet project, Future Assured, which is an initiative to continue her advocacy work for the health and wellbeing of women and children through community mobilization and health promotion in the country. The first lady was galvanized by the need to improve the existing poor state of health of women, children and other vulnerable groups in the society. The Future Assured initiative of the First lady has collaborated with internationally recognized NGO’s and other Rights groups such as the Sir Emeka Offor Foundation to bring succor to the suffering masses in many parts of the country. The First Lady is of the view that the problem of malnutrition among Nigerian children especially those in IDP camps could be mitigated if parents could provide their malnourished children with 180mls of fortified milk to improve their health. “We should imbibe the culture of feeding our children with appropriate food, using best child feeding practices to improve their health status” Mrs. Buhari advocated.

The first lady has also contributed to the education of the less privileged in many parts of the country. Not long ago, over 750 out of school children in Adamawa state benefited from Aisha Buhari Future Assured program which is aimed at complementing government’s efforts to address the plight of out of school children, especially the girl child. Mrs. Buhari, who has a soft spot for children with disabilities advocated for an enabling environment for children with special needs to contribute to national development. “Everywhere in the world, she said, children with mental disabilities are confronted with learning difficulties, but they need to reach their full potentials and contribute to National Development. “There are highly specialized institutions to cater for their special needs, but for those institutions to function effectively, they need appropriate infrastructure, highly trained teachers and modern teaching aids”.

She also believes that for the nation to make progress in the area of addressing the problems of the children with special need in the country, the private sector and philanthropists must reform and engage government for a way forward. The Aisha Buhari Foundation (ABF) has a vision to improve the health and social states of women and children in this country. “Our children are our future, education of our children is the best way to secure the future of our country”, she said. The first lady has in no small measure used her Foundation to support the internally displaced persons, IDPS to return to their communities through the distribution of relief materials such as food stuff, clothing materials, blankets, mats, beddings, plastic containers and building materials. Many trailer loads of roofing sheets, roofing and noggin wood asbestos ceiling and different types of nails were also distributed to make life worth living for the displaced persons.

The first lady also distributed over 55 million naira to parents of Buni Yadi Boys Secondary School and Chibok Girls Secondary School, being proceeds of her book launch. Mrs Buhari, through her Future Assured project has built orphanage homes and primary schools for children in the IDP camps as a way of supplementing government’s efforts to alleviate the problems of children and other victims of the insurgency. As a forerunner of the campaign for women and girl child education in the country, the First lady’s Future Assured program has as part of her contribution to national development distributed books, school bags, school scandals and other learning materials to students in most parts of the country. “Efforts are underway to rebuild broken down community learning centers and scale up on their spread nationwide so that women who did not complete their education can return and complete their education through these centres”, a spokesman for the Foundation said.

Mrs Buhari’s Youth Education Empowerment Programme (YEEP) is another programme of the First Lady that has attracted wide commendation across the country. It has assisted the youths who are struggling with getting admission into the tertiary institutions because of not clearing their papers with tutorial classes for WAEC, NECO, NABTEB and JAMB. Apart from this, the YEEP programme which has been tried with success in some parts of the country also offer a good training ground for youths to develop writing, communication and public speaking skills. In furtherance of her contribution to Nation building, Mrs Buhari has since she came to the stage in 2015 as wife of PRESIDENT BUHARI, being at the forefront of the right for women who have suffered gender – related violence including battery, rape, and other forms of sexual harassment. She has also frowned at vices such rape of the girl child which has become very rampant in the country today, and she has also advocated for a strong and proper legislation by the law making body to tame the slide. The first lady has been very vocal in the area of women empowerment which she sees as very critical to family sustenance. The pilot programmes has been successfully launched in Lagos, Katsina, Kano and other states where over 10,000 women were trained in various trades and skills acquisition. Plans are underway to commence the exercise in the other states where the programme has not taken off.

Her Excellency, Mrs Aisha Buhari has through her Foundation encouraged women to go into farming in order to avail themselves of the opportunities provided by government for improved agricultural production in the country. These include seedlings, fertilizer and other agriculture inputs such as fisheries, livestock and poultry. The first lady who has acquired several rice milling machines and fish driers for the use of women farmers across the country advises women to access loan and other facilities provided by financial institutions such as Bank of Industries, Bank of Agriculture, CBN’s Nirsal Bank other Micro Finance banks.

Get Involved, is the latest initiative of the First Lady’s Future Assured set up to raise funds for the improvement of the nutritional level of malnourished children across the country, especially those in the IDP Camps. So far, Future Assured has distributed goods worth over 200 million naira for the benefit of malnourished children across the country. The Foundation has also distributed over 100 tons of food supplement to malnourished children across the country and supplied over 250,000 lactating mothers across the country with nutritional supplement. In addition to building health centres and other health facilities across the country, the First Lady has continued to identify with the needy in society by ensuring that nutritional based food items were distributed evenly to the needy in all the states of the federation by the her Future Assured Foundation to mitigate the effect of poverty and improve the nutritional status of the less privileged in the society.