Opinions

Remi Tinubu and the Road to the President’s Re-election, By Dr Dayo Israel

Over the past three years, the Renewed Hope Initiative associated with the First Lady has become a significant platform for interventions touching women’s empowerment, education, health, humanitarian support and social welfare.

Published

3 months ago

August 4, 2026

OCHEFA

353 Views

Cover image: First Lady Senator Oluremi Tinubu

Every political journey has its visible protagonists.

History of political spouses

There is the candidate, the campaign, the crowds, the rallies and, ultimately, the votes. But behind many historic political journeys are people whose contributions are less easily captured in campaign posters or ballot papers.

Among them are the spouses who choose, despite the pressures of public life, to stand beside their partners when the road becomes difficult. It is an often underestimated role.

The Constitution may define the powers of a President, but it does not define the emotional architecture that sustains a person carrying the weight of a nation.

It does not describe the person who listens when the cameras are switched off, who understands the pressure behind the public smile, who watches a spouse become the subject of national controversy, or who must decide whether to retreat into private life or step forward into the political storm.

Around the world, First Ladies and First Spouses have answered that question differently. Michelle Obama became one of the most compelling modern examples of a First Lady who embraced public life as a platform for service.

She developed causes and initiatives of her own, travelled extensively, spoke directly to citizens and became a powerful communicator of the Obama administration’s broader values, while remaining an important partner to Barack Obama through the demands of his presidency and political career.

Her model demonstrated that a First Lady need not be a ceremonial appendage to the President; she can become a force multiplier, using access and visibility to strengthen causes, communities and the broader social mission surrounding an administration.

But the history of political spouses also reminds us that there is no single template for standing beside a political leader.

Melania Trump offered a strikingly different model during Donald Trump’s 2024 return to the presidential campaign.

She was largely absent from the campaign trail, appearing selectively rather than becoming a constant presence at rallies and political events.

Her public role was shaped by a preference for privacy and selectivity, and although she eventually made appearances in support of her husband, including a surprise appearance at Madison Square Garden shortly before the election, she largely remained away from the daily theatre of the campaign. Reports also indicated that her influence did not disappear simply because her public appearances were limited; she remained a private sounding board for her husband.

Her example is important because it demonstrates that there are different ways of being a political spouse.

Public political conversation

One may support privately, advise quietly and appear selectively, or one may choose the more demanding route of visibility, travelling, speaking, mobilising, meeting people and allowing one’s own reputation to become part of the public political conversation.

Senator Oluremi Tinubu has unmistakably chosen the latter.To describe her simply as the wife of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu would be to miss much of the story.

Before she became Nigeria’s First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu had already lived a substantial public life of her own. She served in the Senate, participated in Nigeria’s political life and developed her own convictions and public identity.

The presidency expanded her platform, but it did not create her. The more interesting question is what she has chosen to do with that platform, and over the last several months the answer has become increasingly visible.

She has travelled across the country, engaged women and communities, spoken to young people, participated in political and social initiatives and increasingly placed herself in the difficult space where national leadership, grassroots mobilisation and public communication intersect. She has chosen not to remain at the edge of the political conversation, but to enter it.

That choice comes with a cost. Public visibility creates exposure, and exposure creates vulnerability. In the age of instant headlines, social media clips and political polarisation, the distance between what a public figure says and what the public believes she said can sometimes be measured in seconds.

Senator Tinubu has had her share of this experience.

She has been criticised, scrutinised and, on occasions, had her words interpreted through partisan lenses or separated from the context in which they were delivered.

Controversy and Clarification

Some of her remarks have generated controversy and required explanation or clarification.

But perhaps the more revealing part of the story is not that she has escaped controversy; she plainly has not. It is that controversy has not driven her out of the arena.

She has continued to show up. That matters because courage in public life is not the absence of criticism. It is the ability to continue fulfilling one’s responsibilities when criticism arrives.

It is easy to stand beside power when the crowd is applauding; it requires a different kind of conviction to remain visible when applause becomes argument.

This is where Senator Oluremi Tinubu’s story becomes more than a story about political loyalty. It becomes a story about partnership, public service and the practical use of influence.

Renewed Hope Initiative

A review published earlier this year reported that the initiative had mobilised and disbursed more than ₦100 billion over its first three years through direct interventions, donations and multi-year commitments.

The number is significant, but numbers alone do not tell the human story. The more important question is what influence enables other people to do.

A speech may inspire someone for an afternoon; a resource can enable that person to do something tomorrow.

That is why some of Senator Tinubu’s recent interventions deserve to be considered through the lens of capacity rather than simply generosity.

Provision of vehicles to APC women leaders

In June 2026, for instance, she announced the provision of vehicles to APC women leaders in Abia, Anambra, Bauchi, Osun and Oyo, particularly women working in states where the APC does not control the governorship.

The significance goes beyond the vehicles themselves. Grassroots politics, like grassroots development, requires infrastructure.

A woman leader cannot reach communities she cannot travel to.

A political structure can possess passion, commitment and people, but without the tools to activate that commitment, enthusiasm can eventually become exhaustion. Mobility creates access, access creates connection, connection creates organisation, and organisation creates participation.

What appears on the surface to be a simple donation can therefore become an investment in the ability of people to do the work they have been asked to do.

APC National Youth Wing

That same logic is visible in the recent intervention that is particularly close to me: the presentation of nine buses to the APC National Youth Wing.

I received those buses on Friday, and therefore I do not speak about them merely as an observer reading a press statement.

I saw what the intervention means to a youth structure that has carried enormous responsibilities while often contending with logistical limitations and the weariness that comes when young people are expected to carry national responsibilities without adequate institutional support. Nine buses do not solve every problem, but they solve one important problem: movement.

They give young leaders greater capacity to travel into communities, support programmes across states, connect with young Nigerians beyond the familiar centres of political activity and take national engagement closer to the grassroots. In that sense, the buses are more than vehicles.

They are organisational infrastructure. They carry people, but they also carry ideas, programmes, conversations and possibilities.The same philosophy extends beyond the immediate political environment.

INSPIRE, the Inclusive Network for Supporting Progressive Leadership

In May, Senator Tinubu launched INSPIRE, the Inclusive Network for Supporting Progressive Leadership, Innovation, Reform and Equity for Women, aimed at strengthening women’s leadership, inclusion and professional advancement within Nigeria’s Federal Civil Service.

That intervention is important because it illustrates another dimension of her public role: influence is not necessarily most valuable when it is used to make oneself more prominent; it is most valuable when it makes other people more capable.

The legacy of a First Lady should therefore not be measured only by rallies attended or political structures mobilised.

It can also be measured by the women whose confidence grows, the young people who become more engaged, the institutions that become better equipped and the citizens who discover that their participation matters.

And perhaps that is the most interesting measure of Senator Oluremi Tinubu’s influence: not simply what she does herself, but what her example causes other people to do.

Mummy’s Men (and Women) Movement

This is where the emergence of the Mummy’s Men (and Women) Movement becomes particularly intriguing.

The idea began with a simple question: if Mummy is doing her part, what should her followers be doing? It is a question that captures something larger than the creation of another political support group. It speaks to the multiplier effect of example.

One person acts, another observes, inspiration follows, and inspiration eventually becomes organisation and participation.

If Mummy is walking the road, there should be followers and fans willing to walk it with her too.

That is the most compelling way to understand Mummy’s Men Movement. It is not simply about praising the First Lady. It is about responding to example with action.

If a woman can travel across the country, invest her time, strengthen structures, support women, empower young people and continue to participate despite the inevitable criticism that accompanies public life, then perhaps the appropriate response from men who admire that example is not merely applause but contribution.

Admiration watches; influence moves

And perhaps Senator Oluremi Tinubu’s most enduring contribution at this stage of her public journey may eventually be found not only in the things she personally accomplished, but in the number of people she inspired to decide that they too should carry some weight on the road.It is important, however, not to reduce her story to loyalty to her husband.

That would diminish both the woman and the office she occupies. Senator Tinubu is entitled to be understood as a public figure in her own right, with her own political history, interests, convictions and record of service. Nor should the contrast with Melania Trump be interpreted as a judgement about which model is superior.

Melania exercised her agency through a largely private and selective role, maintaining influence without embracing the daily visibility of the campaign trail. Senator Oluremi Tinubu has exercised hers differently.

She has chosen to be visible, to travel, to engage, to mobilise and to place her reputation into the public arena. Both approaches demonstrate that there is no single way for a political spouse to support a partner.

What makes Senator Tinubu’s choice distinctive is the scale of her public participation and her willingness to remain present even when that visibility exposes her to criticism.That willingness deserves to be understood in its proper context.

The road to an election will ultimately be measured in votes, and those votes belong to Nigerians. But political journeys are made long before Election Day.

Standing beside a political leader does not mean declaring that he is beyond criticism, nor does it require a spouse to surrender her individuality. Political support and democratic accountability can exist together.

A healthy democracy requires scrutiny, disagreement and the freedom to question those in power. But within that democratic space, a spouse can still decide that she will stand with her husband, contribute to the work around him and use the access that comes with her position to strengthen people and institutions.

The President carries the constitutional burden of governing the country; the First Lady does not share that constitutional mandate. Yet she can help strengthen the social, humanitarian, political and human ecosystem around the presidency.

That is a legitimate form of public service.Perhaps this is what makes the present chapter of Senator Oluremi Tinubu’s public life so compelling.

She has accepted the paradox of being a First Lady: she occupies an office that is not constitutionally defined in the same way as elected political offices, yet she possesses a platform powerful enough to shape public conversation; she does not sit in the President’s chair, yet she can strengthen the people and structures around him; she is not the principal actor in the electoral contest, yet her visibility can affect the political atmosphere in which that contest takes place. She has chosen to embrace rather than avoid that paradox. And with that choice has come scrutiny.

It has brought applause in some places and criticism in others, moments of celebration and moments of controversy. But there is something dignified about the decision to remain present when disappearing would be easier.

The public sees the President at the podium, the campaign, the crowds and the speeches.

What it does not see is the invisible architecture of political life: the private conversations, the counsel, the emotional support, the family pressures and the people who decide, in their own way, whether to carry some part of the burden.

Senator Oluremi Tinubu has chosen to carry some of it in public.

The road to an election will ultimately be measured in votes, and those votes belong to Nigerians. But political journeys are made long before Election Day.

They are made in conversations across states, in meetings with women, in youth engagements, in community visits, in the strengthening of grassroots structures and in the countless acts of support that make participation possible.

They are made when a woman leader receives the means to reach communities that were previously difficult to access; when a young organiser is given the mobility to travel; when a civil servant sees a pathway to leadership; and when men who have watched the First Lady’s example decide that they too should become participants rather than spectators.

That, perhaps, is the deeper story behind Remi Tinubu and the road to the President’s re-election. It is not simply the story of a woman accompanying her husband on a political journey.

It is the story of a woman who has increasingly chosen to make that journey visible, to turn influence into practical support and to inspire others to contribute their own weight to the road.

She has not been a woman without critics, nor has she been a woman who has never been misunderstood.

She has been tested by the peculiar pressures of public life, yet she has continued to show up.History will eventually judge the Tinubu presidency by its policies, outcomes, successes, failures and the lived experiences of Nigerians. The electorate will make its decision in accordance with its convictions.

That is the proper order of democracy. But alongside that history, there will also be the quieter story of those who walked the road with the principal actor, strengthened the people around him and chose not to retreat when the journey became difficult.

Senator Oluremi Tinubu has chosen to walk.

And perhaps that is what courage sometimes looks like: not the absence of noise, not the certainty that everyone will understand you, not a life without criticism, but the quiet determination to keep moving when the road becomes difficult.

If Mummy is walking the road, perhaps the most fitting response from those inspired by her is not simply to watch.It is to walk too.

∆ Dayo Israel is the National Youth Leader of the APC and the Convenor of the Mummy’s Men Movement, and he writes from Abuja.

Up Next

BREAKING: Lagos Govt Declares Today, Thursday Work-Free to Mark 2026 Ìṣẹ̀ṣe Day

Don't Miss

Am I A Thief?

Click to comment

Opinions

Tinubu Built Nothing but Solar Farm for Aso Rock While Nigerians Suffer — ADC-PCC

Published

5 days ago

October 30, 2026

Charles Flames

69 Views

The African Democratic Congress Presidential Campaign Council (ADC-PCC) has described as an insult to Nigerians the statement credited to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, through his Special Adviser on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga, declaring that “The Question Is What We Build, Not How Much We Borrow.”

In a statement issued in Abuja by its Director of Media and Publicity, Kola Ologbondiyan, the ADC-PCC challenged President Tinubu to identify what his administration has actually built with the mountain of loans accumulated since assuming office in 2023. The council insisted that Nigerians have seen little or no tangible returns on the country’s growing debt burden.

Ologbondiyan said it was particularly disturbing that Mr Onanuga would attempt to dress the President in borrowed garments by speaking about infrastructure and development when the administration has failed to demonstrate commensurate achievements despite unprecedented borrowing.

He alleged that the only visible project associated with the administration’s concern for electricity is a solar farm installed to guarantee power supply within the comfort of the Presidential Villa, while millions of Nigerians continue to grapple with unreliable electricity.

“For three and a half wasted years, the Tinubu government has borrowed without restraint and built nothing. No value, no legacy, no impact,” Ologbondiyan stated.

“Except for projects inherited from the late President Muhammadu Buhari, many of the projects being advertised by the Tinubu administration are nothing but audio projects. They exist only on paper, as conceptual designs or as announcements on newspaper pages and television screens. Under Tinubu, virtually every project exists in a press statement.

“Where is the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway? Audio. Where is the Sokoto-Badagry Superhighway? Audio. Where is the Trans-Sahara Superhighway? Audio. Where are the promised electricity grid upgrades? All propaganda, no commensurate progress, just media hype from Bayo Onanuga and his team.

“Even the Abuja-Kaduna-Kano Highway, awarded more than eight years ago, remains a source of concern to motorists. Its prolonged construction and delays tell the story of APC governance.

“Mr President must wake up and confront the reality facing Nigerians, if there is still time left between now and January 16. Citizens are hungry and enduring excruciating hardship. People are dying from hunger, insecurity and deprivation, while the government remains preoccupied with propaganda and self-congratulatory statements. These are the real signposts of what the Tinubu administration has built in almost four years.

“Today, ministries are barely functioning, agencies are struggling, and critical directorates are failing to deliver. Nigeria is practically comatose.

“The Tinubu Presidency came into power without a convincing blueprint or workable ideas and, after almost four years, has offered Nigerians little beyond failure, hardship, poverty and insecurity.

“If borrowing is truly for development, let President Tinubu show Nigerians one tangible project his administration has delivered with its trillions of naira in loans, beyond the solar farm in the Presidential Villa. The only thing this administration has successfully built is hardship.

“We appeal to international donors, development partners and financial institutions to exercise greater scrutiny and insist on accountability, transparency and prudence before extending further loans to Nigeria.

“Borrowing is not inherently wrong when the benefits translate into improved living conditions for citizens. What is unacceptable is a situation in which the country continues to accumulate debts without corresponding benefits for the people.

“Nigerians must not be compelled to continue financing the luxury, profligacy and privileged lifestyle of those in power while ordinary citizens wallow in poverty. Future generations should not be burdened with debts incurred without demonstrable benefits to them.

“The National Assembly must rise to its constitutional responsibility and save the country from being mortgaged through indiscriminate borrowings. It must stop acting as a rubber stamp for every loan request and defend the economic future of Nigeria.

“History will not forgive the 10th National Assembly if it stands by while the country is plunged deeper into a cycle of unsustainable indebtedness.”

Opinions

Human Capital Africa Statement For International Day of the Girl Child 2026

UNICEFs 2026 estimates show that about one in five girls worldwide is married before 18.

Published

3 weeks ago

October 12, 2026

OCHEFA

163 Views

Image credit : UN

By Obiageli ObyEzekwesili

A girl who learns is a girl who is not a bride.

Today the world is asked to end child marriage and invest in girls rights.

I join that call wearing three hats: as a member of the advisory council behind Columbia University’s report Accelerating Efforts to End Child Marriage; as Civil Society Representative on the Steering Committee of the African Unions Decade of Accelerated Action for the Transformation of Education and Skills Development in Africa (20252034); and as the leader of Human Capital Africa, an organisation that has spent years arguing that Africas human capital crisis begins in the early-grade classroom.

The numbers are clear.

UNICEFs 2026 estimates show that about one in five girls worldwide is married before 18.

That adds up to roughly 650 million women and girls alive today who were married as children.

More than 12 million girls are still married each year, about one every three seconds, and sub-Saharan Africa has the highest prevalence at 31 per cent

.In Nigeria, 23.6 million women and girls were married before 18, the largest number in West and Central Africa.

In parts of the North the situation is a national emergency: in Jigawa, 78 per cent of women were first married before 18, and 63 per cent of women left school to marry.

The cost of inaction is high. Our Columbia report includes new analysis by the Center for Global Development.

It estimates losses of up to $175 billion a year, or almost $2.5 trillion by 2040, from lost productivity and higher health risks caused by child marriage.

The report also warns that aid cuts, weakening global commitment to womens rights, and rising conflict could slow or reverse progress.

Child marriage is not a side issue in development. It drains a nations human capital directly.Progress is possible.

An estimated 68 million child marriages have been averted over the past 25 years, through girls education, legal reform and social protection.

In parts of the North the situation is a national emergency: in Jigawa, 78 per cent of women were first married before 18, and 63 per cent of women left school to marry.

The evidence on what works is strong: Each year of secondary education lowers a girls chance of marrying before 18 by five percentage points or more.

In Niger, when the government removed the direct costs of middle school for rural girls, each additional year in secondary school was associated with a 19 percentage point lower probability of marriage.

If every African girl completed secondary education, child marriage could be almost eliminated.

Where HCAs mission and this campaign meet.

A girl cannot stay in secondary school if she never learned to read.

Today, 89 per cent of children in sub-Saharan Africa are in learning poverty, unable to read and understand a simple text by age ten.

A girl who cannot read by ten falls behind, then drops out.

Once she is out of school, she is at the greatest risk of marriage. That is why we say schooling is not learning.

Foundational literacy and numeracy are the first and cheapest protection a girl has.

At the Columbia launch I said that community programmes and advocacy are not enough on their own. Governments must lead.

On this Day of the Girl, Human Capital Africa calls on African governments to:

1. Make foundational learning a girl-protection policy. Every girl should be reading with comprehension by age ten, using proven methods such as structured pedagogy and Teaching at the Right Level.

2. Guarantee the move into secondary school. Remove fees, uniform and transport costs for girls, especially in rural communities with high rates of child marriage.

3. Enforce 18 as the minimum age of marriage in law and in practice, in every state and every community, with traditional and religious leaders as partners.

4. Fund this domestically. As foreign aid shrinks, African budgets and African philanthropy must take over.

5. Measure and publish.

Track girls learning, their transition to secondary school, and child marriage rates in national accountability systems.

The AU Decade of Education gives Africa ten years and a continental mandate.

As a member of its Steering Committee, I will press for girlslearning and retention to be at the centre of how the Decades success is measured.

A Decade that does not end child marriage will not have transformed African education.

The Columbia report sets a realistic target: cutting child marriage prevalence from one in five to one in seven within five years.

Africa can lead the way to that target, but only if we treat every girls classroom as the place where her childhood is protected.

Any girl-child should be a student, not a bride. She should learn, then lead.

• Obiageli ObyEzekwesiliFounder, Human Capital Africa | Former Nigeria’s Minister of Education and Vice President for Africa Region, World Bank.

Opinions

The Girl Who Was Almost Married at 10 Is Taking Her Story to the United Nations

On September 4 this week…Sierra Leone’s First Lady is expected to stand before the United Nations General Assembly with a proposal aimed at protecting millions of girls from the same fate.

Published

2 months ago

September 4, 2026

OCHEFA

319 Views

• Sierra Leone’s First Lady, Fatima Maada Bio

By Ahmed Sahid Nasralla (De Monk)

AT about 10 years old, Fatima Maada Bio already knew who she was expected to marry.

She was a child, but an adult decision had been made about the direction her life should take. Somehow, she escaped that future.

On September 4 this week, many, many years after that little girl could have been sent into a marriage she did not choose, Sierra Leone’s First Lady is expected to stand before the United Nations General Assembly with a proposal aimed at protecting millions of girls from the same fate.

She is expected to present a draft resolution seeking the proclamation of November 27 as an ‘International Day for the Elimination of Child, Early and Forced Marriage’. The proposal is new.

The date is not yet an official UN observance. It is a call for the international community to give the issue a permanent place on its calendar and, with it, sustained attention and action.

There is something deeply personal about that journey.

According to briefing material from the Office of the First Lady of Sierra Leone, she knew at around the age of 10 who she was expected to marry and narrowly escaped child marriage.

That experience did not become a footnote in her life. It became part of the reason she has spent years speaking about the rights and protection of women and girls.

The First Lady’s public advocacy has taken her from communities in Sierra Leone to some of the world’s most important international forums.

Her flagship ‘Hands Off Our Girls’ campaign has focused on ending rape, early marriage and violence against women and girls, while her work has also extended into girls’ education, women’s health and other issues affecting vulnerable communities.

However, her return to the United Nations this time carries a particularly personal weight.

She is taking a subject that could have defined her own childhood and asking the international community to give it greater and lasting attention.

It is not her first attempt to put child protection on the UN agenda.

In 2022, she spearheaded the effort that led the General Assembly to proclaim November 18 as the ‘World Day for the Prevention of and Healing from Child Sexual Exploitation, Abuse and Violence’.

“She is expected to present a draft resolution seeking the proclamation of November 27 as an ‘International Day for the Elimination of Child, Early and Forced Marriage’. The proposal is new.”

UNAIDS describes her as having championed the adoption of that first-ever World Day.

The United Nations has also continued to strengthen its attention to child, early and forced marriage.

In December 2024, the General Assembly adopted a resolution addressing the issue.

Sierra Leone has been moving on the national front too. The country enacted legislation in 2024 prohibiting marriage involving anyone under 18.

So when Fatima Maada Bio walks into the General Assembly this week, she will be carrying a story that has travelled through several stages: from the experience of a young girl, to a national campaign, to legislation, and now to another attempt to secure a place for the issue on the global calendar.

The numbers behind the issue are sobering.

The United Nations and other international organisations have consistently described child marriage as a major barrier to girls’ education, health, economic opportunity and personal autonomy.

Behind every statistic, though, there is a girl whose childhood is being shortened.

There is a school she may leave, friends she may lose, choices she may never get to make, and a future that may be decided for her before she is old enough to understand what that future means. That is why the personal history of the woman making this proposal is important.

Fatima Maada Bio knows what it means for adults to imagine a future for a girl before she has had the opportunity to imagine one for herself. She also knows what it means to get away.

That gives her advocacy a particular human quality. The issue is something she encountered as a child and has carried into her public life as an adult.

The fight has also taken her beyond child marriage. Last week, OncoDaily named her among its 100 Influential Women in Oncology for 2026, recognising her work in women’s health and cancer prevention.

The publication highlighted her partnership with the Merck Foundation, which has supported specialist medical training in Sierra Leone, including scholarships that contributed to the development of the country’s cancer-care workforce.

It also noted her advocacy for breast cancer awareness and early detection and her participation in discussions around the WHO Global Breast Cancer Initiative.

It is another part of a public role that has increasingly stretched beyond the traditional image of a First Lady.

Then there is child protection, and women’s health.

There is girls’ education, and the wider question of how countries protect women and children who often have the least power over decisions affecting their lives.

The international recognition in oncology is significant for another reason.

It shows that her advocacy is being noticed in fields far removed from the political spotlight in which First Ladies are usually seen.

Nonetheless, the child-marriage campaign remains different. It brings her public work unusually close to her own childhood.

Sierra Leone, as a country, has its own reason to pay attention to what happens in New York this week.

The country has already taken the important step of outlawing marriage involving children under 18.

The First Lady has been one of the most visible voices pushing the protection of girls into the national conversation.

Her campaign has also received international recognition, including her appointment by UNAIDS as a champion for the empowerment and engagement of adolescent girls and young women.

Now she is taking the conversation back to the United Nations. The proposed international day would not, by itself, end child marriage.

A date on the UN calendar cannot keep a girl in school, or protect her from an abusive household or change the circumstances that make families vulnerable to marrying off their daughters.

Those things require laws, enforcement, education, economic opportunity, social protection and changes in attitudes that can take generations.But international days can keep issues alive.

They create opportunities for governments, schools, civil society organisations, communities and international agencies to return to a problem every year, measure progress and remind themselves of what remains unfinished. That is the opportunity behind November 27.

This may also be the reason why the story of the little girl who nearly became a child bride is worth remembering when Fatima Maada Bio enters the General Assembly. She is no longer that girl.

She got education and became a journalist, an actress, an advocate, a mother, and Sierra Leone’s First Lady. She also became the President of the Organisation of African First Ladies for Development.

She is now asking the world to give millions of girls something she was fortunate enough to have: the chance to grow up and become all of that and even more before someone else decides what their lives should become.

That is what, on behalf of Sierra Leone and the world, she is carrying into the United Nations on September 4.

Not a speech or a title. She is carrying a powerful story the General Assembly should listen and act on.

• Ahmed Sahid Nasralla is the Ex-Officio and Immediate Past President of the Sierra Leone Association of Journalists (SLAJ), and the Chairman of the Federation of African Journalists (FAJ) Working Group on Climate Change.