Nigeria’s First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, has renewed her campaign for household food production.

This is just as she has harvested vegetables from the Presidential Villa garden.

She urged Nigerians to embrace home gardening as a practical way of improving food security and reducing the burden of rising food prices.

The latest harvest, carried out on Monday at the Presidential Villa in Abuja, formed part of her Every Home A Garden initiative.

The programme is designed to encourage families to cultivate vegetables within available spaces around their homes.

According to information shared on Tuesday by the Nigerian Television Authority (NTA), the garden continues to produce a variety of vegetables.

The harvest included spinach, waterleaf and fluted pumpkin, nearly two years after it was established.

Following the harvest, the First Lady shared part of the fresh produce with members of her staff.

She said the initiative also promotes the culture of sharing while providing households with access to nutritious, home-grown food.

Oluremi Tinubu has consistently presented home gardening as a simple but effective strategy for boosting household nutrition, lowering food expenditure and strengthening food resilience among others.

This is coming particularly at a time many Nigerians continue to grapple with the high cost of food.

The Villa garden was unveiled in July 2024 under the Renewed Hope Initiative as a demonstration project intended to show that vegetable cultivation is possible even within limited residential spaces.

The Every Home A Garden campaign particularly targets women and families.

It also encouraged them to make productive use of available land around their homes to supplement household food supplies.

The First Lady’s renewed advocacy for home gardening comes barely weeks after she found herself at the centre of a nationwide debate over comments encouraging vulnerable Nigerians to take up small-scale businesses.

According to her, this includes frying akara, roasting corn and producing kuli-kuli among others.

Speaking during an interview on her social investment programmes, Oluremi Tinubu said such ventures required little start-up capital and noted that the Federal Government was providing grants, not loans, to support beneficiaries.

The remarks quickly sparked criticism on social media.

Many Nigerians argued that suggesting petty trading at a time of severe economic hardship reflected a disconnect from the realities facing millions of citizens.

Others, however, defended the First Lady, insisting her comments were made within the context of empowerment programmes targeted at low-income and vulnerable groups rather than as a blanket prescription for all Nigerians.

The backlash gave rise to the now-viral nickname “Iya Alakara”, which gained even more prominence after President Bola Tinubu jokingly addressed his wife by the moniker during the inaugural Presidential Press Corps Dinner at the State House.

The controversy later resurfaced when the Tinubu Media Centre shared an AI-generated image depicting the First Lady selling akara, a move that reignited online debate over her earlier remarks. (daily trust)

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