Remi Tinubu: First Lady of Nigeria, Senate Career and Renewed Hope Initiative

Oluremi “Remi” Tinubu is the First Lady of Nigeria, the wife of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and a former senator for Lagos Central. Before moving to the presidential villa in 2023 she spent eight years as First Lady of Lagos State and twelve years in the Senate. She is also an ordained pastor of the Redeemed Christian Church of God. This profile follows published records and news reports and separates what is documented from what is only repeated online.

Quick Facts

Detail	Information and source
Full name	Oluremi Tinubu (Wikipedia)
Date of birth	21 September 1960 (Wikipedia)
Family origin	Ikusebiala family of Ogun State; 12th of 13 children, according to Wikipedia
First Lady of Lagos State	1999 to 2007
Senator, Lagos Central	2011 to 2023, three terms; All Progressives Congress (APC)
First Lady of Nigeria	Since May 2023
Faith	Christian; ordained pastor, Redeemed Christian Church of God (August 2018)

Early life and education

According to the Wikipedia entry, Remi Tinubu was born on 21 September 1960 and comes from the Ikusebiala family of Ogun State. She is described as the twelfth of thirteen children. Her secondary education was at Our Lady of Apostles Secondary School in Ijebu-Ode, where she took the West African Senior School Certificate Examination in 1979. She later earned a National Certificate in Education in Botany and Zoology from Adeyemi College of Education and a bachelor’s degree in Education from Obafemi Awolowo University, and a postgraduate diploma from the Redeemed Christian Bible College in 2010. Because these details come from one summary and from official biographies that are not independently linked, they should be treated as reported rather than confirmed by transcripts.

First Lady of Lagos State, 1999 to 2007

When her husband, Bola Tinubu, was elected governor of Lagos in 1999, she became the state’s First Lady and held that role until 2007. During this period she established the New Era Foundation, which says it aims to create centres for the all-round development of young people and to promote public awareness on environmental health and community service. She is also described as Grand Matron of the Committee of Wives of Lagos State Officials.

Senator for Lagos Central

She was first elected to the Senate in 2011 to represent Lagos Central. The result was challenged at the Legislative House Election Petition Tribunal, which upheld it in 2012. She won again in 2015, when she was one of six women in a Senate of over one hundred members, and in 2019, which made her third term. She served until 2023, when her husband became president.

Records of her Senate work include:

• In 2016 she asked the Inspector-General of Police for security after an alleged threat from a fellow senator, Dino Melaye, during a closed-door session.
• In 2020 she called for the creation of state police as a way to tackle insecurity.
• In March 2021 she introduced a bill to reform the Nigerian Postal Service (NIPOST).
• In March 2021 she was reported to have received an award for the most impactful female senator at a women’s summit organised by The Guardian.
• She runs a youth empowerment and skills scheme which, per the reference summary, produced 1,172 beneficiaries, including 164 trained and given start-up kits.

The legislative record is more modest than some online profiles suggest. For an authoritative list of bills sponsored and attendance, check the National Assembly’s own records instead of fan pages.

Faith and ordination

Although she has been publicly identified as a Christian throughout her political career, she became an ordained pastor of the Redeemed Christian Church of God in August 2018, at the church’s 66th annual convention themed “Dominion” at its Lagos–Ibadan Expressway camp. Wikipedia notes that she is a Christian married to a Muslim.

Marriage and family

She is married to President Bola Tinubu. According to the Wikipedia summary, they have three children together. She is also stepmother to three of his children from earlier relationships, one of whom has died. Because these are adult private individuals, we do not list their names or details here beyond what is public and widely reported.

First Lady of Nigeria and the Renewed Hope Initiative

Since May 2023 she has been First Lady of Nigeria. Her main public project is the Renewed Hope Initiative (RHI). Punch reported in April 2026 that, by the initiative’s own review of 2023 to April 2026, it had mobilised and disbursed over N100 billion. That figure includes direct payments, donations and multi-year pledges, and it rose from N9.4 billion reported over its first 16 months and N12.9 billion in mid-2025.

Programmes named in that report include:

• July 2023: N500 million to victims of insecurity in Maiduguri, and N427.75 million to widows and orphans of fallen servicemen, with N250,000 each to 1,709 beneficiaries.
• An Elderly Support Scheme across the 36 states and the FCT, with N200,000 grants to 250 elderly citizens per state.
• A partnership with the Tony Elumelu Foundation giving N50,000 grants to 18,500 women entrepreneurs.
• The Oluremi@65 Education Fund, launched in September 2025 to help complete the National Library in Abuja; the report says it raised N25.52 billion by 31 December 2025.
• A “Flow with Confidence” programme to supply sanitary products worth N2.55 billion to 370,000 schoolgirls.
• A National Community Food Bank Programme, launched on 2 April 2026, with pledges said to total over N66 billion, including N20 billion from the Aliko Dangote Foundation and N10 billion from NNPC Limited.

Punch also covered a N2 billion learners-retention scheme in which 100,000 pupils would receive N20,000 each (report), and the initiative itself published a payment of N819 million to 1,638 widows of fallen military and police personnel (RHI).

Funding and accountability. The Punch report notes that the office of First Lady is not constitutionally recognised and has no statutory funding. A spokesman for the 2023 Labour Party presidential candidate, Tanko Yunusa, was quoted as saying the donations lacked clear budgetary appropriation, while also calling the humanitarian work good. Mrs Tinubu has said the initiative is an NGO funded by donations, and her media aide said a governing board oversees the funds. The totals above are the initiative’s own figures, and we have not seen an independent audit. The Guardian published an assessment after three years, which readers can compare with the initiative’s own reports.

Awards and honours

The reference summary lists the national honour Officer of the Order of the Niger (OON); a membership of the board of trustees of Kings University, Ode-Omu; a Ghana Noble International Award for Leadership (2004); and a Gambian Diamond Award (2005). It also mentions a “Person of the Year 2025” award without naming the organiser, which we could not trace, so we do not rely on it.

What we could not verify

• Net worth and assets. No audited or official figure exists, and she has not published one, so we give none.
• Degrees and dates. These are taken from a single reference summary; we did not see transcripts or university confirmations.
• “Person of the Year 2025” award. The awarding body could not be identified.
• Impact of RHI. Beneficiary and funding totals are the initiative’s own figures.
• Children’s details. Only the number of children is stated, per the reference summary.

Sources

• Wikipedia
• Punch
• Renewed Hope Initiative
• The Guardian

Last reviewed October 2026. If you spot an error, see our Corrections page.