- Safiu Kehinde
Nigerian First Lady, Oluremi Tinubu, has expressed optimism about the United States’ possible change of perception regarding Nigeria with President Donald Trump’s special recognition of her.
NPO Reported that Trump had at the National Prayer Breakfast held last week in Washington DC specially acknowledged Tinubu, describing her as a very respected person.
Trump had in his address at the event introduced the First Lady as a Pastor in the biggest church in Nigeria while recounting the US recent engagement in tackling terrorism acts in the West African country.
Reflecting on the moment during an interview with Fox News on Monday, Oluremi Tinubu admitted being initially surprised by the recognition which she considered a good omen for Nigeria.
“Who would have thought that would happen to even say the least? When you look at that and getting global recognition, that is what life is all about. If something is going to be good, it will come from the rubbles. It’s stays like that.
“We have that attention and conversation going. We expect it’s going to yield a better fruit for us.” She said.
When asked on the Nigerian government’s efforts in tackling the growing insecurity concerns across the country, the First Lady highlighted several interventions already put in place by President Bola Tinubu.
“We’ve been able to educate them more about the situation on ground. We live in Nigeria. We know that this is a democracy and we are getting close to election to election and there will be a lot of potholes they want the outside world to know.
“We can see that with this government; we are just out of a lot of economic crises that we inherited.
“This is the first time the government of Nigeria will remove fuel subsidy. We were producing oil but we were not refining. Now in Nigeria, we have refined products and we are not importing fuel like before. Our exchange rate is stabilising. The country is moving forward.
“We are trying to make sure that insecurity we can tackle and the President has even changed the Service Chiefs. They’ve been replaced with new ones.
“In November, because of what is going on and world concern about Nigerian Christians, my husband declared a state of emergency on the 26th of November 2025, on insecurity.
“He had to ask the police Inspector General to recruit additional 50,000 police officers and then the soldiers 24,000 officers so that they can help in securing the country.
“And also note that there are10,000 Forest Guards that were not carrying arms before. He said they should be armed so that they can secure the forest where all those terrorists take hiding.” She said.