During Friday’s Renewed Hope Initiative empowerment workshop in Port Harcourt, a group of women from Rivers State staged a walkout.
The interruption happened right before retired Vice Admiral Ibok-Ete Ibas’s wife, Mrs. Theresa Ibas, was set to speak at the event. Ibas is the state’s sole administrator. As a delegate for Senator Oluremi Tinubu, the First Lady of Nigeria, Mrs. Ibas attended the function.
The women who were protesting wanted to hear from Senator Tinubu or Siminalayi Fubara’s wife, Valerie, who is the suspended governor of Rivers State.
The women demanded the reinstatement of the suspended governor while chanting “Bring Back Sim” and “We want Valerie Fubara.” They asserted that they did not recognize Mrs. Ibas. We don’t know Ibas,” they said. We have Tinubu as president and Sim Fubara as governor.
The event went ahead indoors as scheduled, with Senator Tinubu’s wife, Mrs. Ibas, making a statement on her behalf, despite the ongoing protest outside the venue.
The First Lady stated that the North-Central zone had already finished the empowerment project, and that the Port Harcourt event was the last leg of the South-South phase. She elaborated by saying that 18,500 women from all six of Nigeria’s geopolitical zones will be impacted by the program.
The First Lady stated that the event’s distribution of freezers, gas cookers with ovens, grinding machines, and generators was to help women start and grow successful companies, which would boost the economy of the country.
The initiative, she continued, “reflects the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, which prioritizes inclusivity, economic growth, and sustainable development, particularly for women.”