Nigeria’s First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, through the Women Mobilisation Directorate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Presidential Campaign Council, has empowered 500 market women, artisans and petty traders in Cross River State.
The empowerment exercise, which took place in Calabar, was part of the directorate’s grassroots engagement ahead of the 2027 general elections.
The Co-Director of the Women Mobilisation Directorate, Dr Betta Edu, who led the outreach, said the beneficiaries received cash grants and working tools to enable them to expand their businesses and improve their livelihoods.
The beneficiaries received deep freezers, blenders, toasters and varying amounts of money, with some petty traders receiving N50,000 to boost their businesses.
Edu said the intervention was particularly targeted at women operating small businesses with limited capital.
“We have not come empty-handed. We have come with different categories of empowerment,” she said.
Edu added that some beneficiaries had been operating with capital as low as N5,000 or N10,000, stressing that the financial support would enable them to expand their businesses and provide better living conditions for their families.
She also highlighted some of the social and economic interventions of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s administration, including the student loan scheme, free maternal healthcare for pregnant women in public health institutions, subsidised renal dialysis and initiatives providing free eyeglasses to vulnerable Nigerians.
According to Edu, the APC women mobilisation team would extend the empowerment programme to other parts of Cross River State, with Ugep in the Central Senatorial District scheduled to benefit between November and December, while the Northern Senatorial District would be reached in January.
As part of the outreach, the delegation also visited the General Hospital, Calabar, where it inspected the facility, provided care packages and settled medical expenses for vulnerable patients in the maternity and surgical wards.
The hospital administrator, Mrs Bassey Effiong Ephraim, expressed appreciation for the intervention and disclosed that efforts were ongoing to recruit additional medical doctors and nurses to strengthen healthcare delivery.
One of the beneficiaries, Mrs Esther Bassey, a widow and mother of three from Odukpani Local Government Area, commended the initiative, saying empowerment programmes had helped vulnerable families sustain their livelihoods.
Meanwhile, the women mobilisation exercise also featured a strategic meeting with APC women leaders and supporters in the state, where they were urged to take the party’s campaign to the grassroots ahead of the 2027 elections.
The wife of the Cross River State Governor, Bishop Eyoanwan Bassey Otu, charged the women to set aside their grievances and return to their respective polling units to mobilise support for President Tinubu, Governor Bassey Otu and other APC candidates.
She urged them to translate their support for the party into actual votes, challenging each woman to mobilise between 100 and 200 votes at her polling unit.
“Go back to your polling unit and go and gather your people, beginning with your women, who will be your foot soldiers. Once you gather them, let them begin to canvass door to door, church to church, prayer meeting to prayer meeting, and market to market,” she said.
The meeting was attended by Dr Edu, female APC candidates, commissioners, local government chairmen and their wives, former commissioners, party leaders and other political stakeholders.
The women pledged their support for the Tinubu-Otu ticket and other APC candidates ahead of the 2027 general elections.
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