A Nigerian youth has stepped forward to defend First Lady Oluremi Tinubu over her widely criticised call for women to engage in petty trading, arguing that her words were taken out of context and that there is nothing demeaning about honest small-scale enterprise.
Speaking in support of Senator Tinubu, the youth said the real issue was dignity in labour, drawing a sharp contrast between humble but honest work and criminal or immoral alternatives.
"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 robber. It's better they know you as a kuli kuli seller than to be known as a prostitute.
"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," he said.
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He also pushed back against critics whom he said had overlooked the First Lady's broader humanitarian record.
Beyond the N100,000 grants distributed to support women, he said Tinubu had donated N2 billion towards tuberculosis intervention, N1 billion to tackle malnutrition and N1.5 billion to address the growing burden of cancer.
He added that when the First Lady presented N100 million grants to states for women's empowerment, she urged governors' wives to top up the funds so that more women could benefit.
According to him, the First Lady never directed grant recipients to use the funds specifically to sell akara.
The money was intended to support petty businesses of the beneficiary's own choosing, with akara and kuli kuli cited merely as examples of what small-scale enterprise could look like, not as prescriptions.
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