First Lady Oluremi Tinubu
Those mocking the First Lady are simply mocking the poor. They despise some people’s small beginnings. Not every Nigerian was born with a silver spoon or any other spoon.
First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, came under scathing attacks from some Nigerians for giving out N50,000 to vulnerable women to start small businesses or support existing ones. She referenced such businesses to include making of akara (bean cake), kuli-kuli (a crunchy, usually spicy peanut snack), or roasting of corn, plantain (Bole), etc.
That was on June 26 while explaining why she was doling out N50,000 to vulnerable women across the country under the Renewed Hope Initiative. She was rebuked for her words and action. Her critics say the money is too small. Some argue that no amount of sales of ‘akara’ or roasting of corn will deliver prosperity to the people. Some even say it is bribery ahead of 2027 elections.
Interestingly, those on the frontline of this criticism are persons who can afford data-enabled android or Apple phone. They are persons who can afford to give out the same N50,000 to their struggling neighbours or to those indigent hawkers they drive past in traffic.
But critics of this gesture miss the point. The grant (not loan) is to those who need it. The vulnerable and poor women. To this category, N50k or less is their prayer point, just some cash to start a petty business. And who says petty business does harm to the economy. When 10 million people are engaged in active small businesses, the economy gets better than when N10 million is in the hand of only one person. The small business owners, in any economy, are an integral part of the informal economy. They are a key part of the nation’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Development happens when a society decides to do every little assignment well. When each person brings a brick, we can build a mansion. Those who hold their views in intended mockery of the First Lady are actually mocking the poor and their small beginnings. They mock those of us who started life from the lowest rung and gradually built capacity to climb to higher rungs. They mock small beginnings even when the Holy Writ (the Bible) warned us never to despise our days of small beginning.
My personal life mirrors the life of the vulnerable. But before I share my testimony and story, let’s take a trip to Bangladesh, the inimitable South Asia nation that in recent years consciously pulled millions of citizens out of poverty.
Welcome to the warmth of Muhammad Yunus, then serving as an economics professor at Chittagong University in Bangladesh. Yunus noticed a challenge for small business owners in Bangladesh; their inability to access loans from banks without comfort for the banks (collateral). He decided to provide a solution by lending a total of $27 (3,327 Bangladesh Taka or N37,123 at today’s value) out of his own pocket to 42 bamboo weavers, which was a common business among the poor in Bangladesh. To his shock, the locals repaid the loans. He decided to structure the credit flow leading to the establishment of Grameen Bank in 1983. The microfinance bank gave out interest-free loans to entry-level entrepreneurs in Bangladesh. This helped them to scale up and sustain their micro family businesses.
Note the difference. What Yunus gave out was interest-free loan which was repaid. What First Lady gave was grant, never to be repaid. The recipients in both cases were the poorest of the poor. Both causes targeted women. Nations in the global south have a huge bulge of the poor and the vulnerable especially women, some of whom have been abandoned by their irresponsible male partners (husbands?). They survive on daily micro businesses, with of course equally abandoned children to feed and care for.
The Yunus innovative funding of micro enterprises helped to revive hope among a certain category of Bangladesh citizens. And for creatively providing solution to this category of impecunious Bangladesh villagers, he won the Nobel Prize for Peace in 2006. The argument of the Norwegian Nobel Committee was that any effort to alleviate poverty is a veritable brick for building global peace. And where there is peace, democracy thrives.
Senator Tinubu does not need to donate billions of naira to connect with the poor. By the way, she has donated billions of naira for certain causes. Empowering the poor is bottom-up economic development. It promotes inclusivity and drives growth from the basement to the top. For developing economies with huge chunk of marginalized poor and persons surviving on the breadline, this is highly recommended to complement the macro-investments at the top with huge fiscal outlays.
Those mocking the First Lady are simply mocking the poor. They despise some people’s small beginnings. Not every Nigerian was born with a silver spoon or any other spoon. Some were born without spoon, silver or bamboo. They need just a sprinkling of water to bud. And surely, they will bud and bear much fruits. This writer has walked this path of life; a path paved with all the totems of poverty and uncertainties. I have hawked second-hand clothes and footwears at Oshodi market in Lagos by the rail line decades ago with my younger brother. Tuesday market at Aswani in Lagos was a never-miss. By then, I was a 300-level student at the University of Lagos on self-sponsorship.
Today, we have left the station of poverty. We did not receive any grant (I wish we did). By dint of hard work, unflinching determination to overawe the storms of life and above all, God’s unfailing grace, we overcame. We got out of the pit of poverty and we are now pulling others out of the same pit, quietly. No optics, no camera rolling. Just quiet philanthropy. This is why I will never mock the poor or any act of charity to help the poor, no matter how small.
If you consider N50,000 too small to give to a struggling woman roasting corn by the road side, or to an idle woman wondering where the next meal will come from, by all means give N100,000 or more to that woman vending peanuts or roasted plantain along your path. Such little acts of kindness renew hope among the vulnerable and makes them feel loved in a cruel and treacherous world.
It is bad that such women are down on their luck. But to mock the one who has stepped out to help them believe in life and a future is worse than acting the devil. You have become the devil itself. Every gesture must not be reduced to partisan politics marinated in bigotry and hate.
