200 Nigerian tertiary students are planned to benefit scholarship opportunities at the African School of Economics through a collaboration between First Lady Oluremi Tinubu‘s Renewed Hope Initiative (RHI) and the African Union Development Agency (AUDA NEPAD).

A statement issued by First Lady Tinubu’s spokesperson, Busola Kukoyi, revealed that the collaboration was disclosed during a courtesy visit by Ms Gloria Akobundu, the national coordinator of NEPAD and Obinna Obiwulu, the director of communications, African School of Economics (ASE), to the First Lady at the State House in Abuja.

As evident from the National Scholarship Programme (NASP), Tertiary Education, the project recently flagged off by The First Lady aimed at providing access to education, is one of the passions of Nigeria’s First Lady.

Expressing excitement about the partnership, the First Lady described the opportunity for Nigerian students to have entrepreneurial education as what the nation needs at this time when many youths erroneously wait for white-collar jobs after their tertiary education.

“In the developed world if you are not innovative enough then you will become jobless, so to have a school where entrepreneurship is being driven is very well thought out and commendable of the founder of Princeton University”, she said.

According to Akobundu, the NEPAD strategic partnership is focusing on various sectors, in line with the objective of AUDA-NEPAD in the area accelerating of economic empowerment for women.

She said NEPAD is known for partnership with public and private sectors and for governance, development and economic growth which she said are part of the focus that attracted them to work with RHI.

She said NEPAD which has now been transformed into the African Union Development Agency (AUDA) was a pledge by African leaders based on a common vision to eradicate poverty in the country.

Akobundu said: “In line with our mandate, AUDA-NEPAD, in partnership with ASE on development, economic and resource mobilization is offering scholarships to 200 children captioned ‘Sen. Remi Tinubu’s Scholarship Fund in partnership with the Renewed Hope Initiative mission.

“The project is designed to provide equal opportunity of access to the highest global standards of tertiary education to young Nigerians”, Akobundu noted.

NEPAD is an economic development programme of the African Union. It was adopted by the African Union at the 37th session of the Assembly of Heads of State and Government in July 2001 in Lusaka, Zambia.

Meanwhile, Minister of Information and National Orientation, Mohammed Idris Malagi, on Wednesday said information regarding activities and intervention programmes by the Renewed Hope Initiative (RHI) will henceforth enjoy wider coverage.

This is in order to capture more women and other vulnerable groups targeted by the initiative across the country.

According to another statement by Kukoyi, the Minister stated this during a courtesy call to the First Lady at the Villa.

Applauding recent interventions by the Initiative, the minister says the Renewed Hope Initiative, RHI programmes effectively complement the Renewed Hope Agenda of the President Bola Tinubu-led administration, and as such deserves to be supported.

He said: “We all know that her role is largely to support Mr. President in the execution of his policies, but she also has her own Initiative. We discussed that and how the Ministry of Information and National Orientation can help in disseminating that to the Nigerian public.”