Nigeria's First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, is set to lead a major mobilisation of women stakeholders in Abuja on Monday as the All Progressives Congress begins to intensify its grassroots campaign ahead of the 2027 presidential election. The event, organised by the Women Mobilisation Directorate of the APC Presidential Campaign Council, is expected to attract more than 20,000 women from across the country. The gathering is themed "Renewed Hope Agenda 2.0: From Reforms to Prosperity," with the mobilisation message, "One Voice, One Movement, One Choice, One Mandate 2027."
The Women Stakeholders' Mobilisation and Empowerment Pre-Inaugural Campaign Roll-Out is scheduled for 8 am at the Bola Ahmed Tinubu International Conference Centre, Abuja. The campaign's women mobilisation directorate has separately said it is targeting 40 million votes from women for President Bola Tinubu and Vice-President Kashim Shettima in the 2027 election. The directorate's Director, Dr Betta Edu, disclosed this ahead of Monday's summit, saying the structure was also expanding grassroots mobilisation across the country.
The gathering is expected to bring together women leaders, professionals, entrepreneurs, political stakeholders, community representatives and grassroots organisers to discuss political participation, mobilisation and government programmes being presented by the APC as part of the Tinubu administration's record. A member of the APC Presidential Campaign Council Women Mobilisation Planning Committee, Princess Gloria Akobundu, said programmes introduced by the Federal Government had affected education, infrastructure, social protection, consumer credit and youth empowerment.
Akobundu specifically cited the Nigerian Education Loan Fund, CREDICORP, infrastructure projects, cash-transfer programmes, digital-skills initiatives and other interventions, arguing that the administration's policies should be consolidated through a second term. She said, "The Nigerian Education Loan Fund has provided an opportunity for Nigerian students who ordinarily may not have been able to afford tertiary education to access interest-free loans." Current NELFUND figures show that the scheme had processed 1,659,853 applications as of September 2026.
The student-loan programme, established under the Student Loans Act, is designed to provide interest-free financial support to eligible students and reduce financial barriers to tertiary education. NELFUND's latest dashboard also lists 1,410,825 registered students and 1,697,185 loan applications. On consumer credit, Akobundu cited CREDICORP, a Federal Government development finance institution established to widen access to consumer financing. CREDICORP says its mandate is to remove structural, market and policy barriers to consumer credit and reach 50 per cent of working Nigerians by 2030.
Akobundu also listed the administration's infrastructure programme, citing the Lagos-Calabar Coastal Highway, Sokoto-Badagry Super Highway and Abuja-Kaduna-Zaria-Kano Road. Tinubu said in May that more than 2,700 kilometres of highways and major roads were under construction, reconstruction or rehabilitation. On social protection, Akobundu said the administration had expanded cash-transfer interventions and introduced programmes including NG-CARES, SOLID and HOPE to support vulnerable households, communities and human-capital development.
The mobilisation comes as political parties and support groups increasingly organise around the 2027 presidential contest, with the APC women's directorate saying its grassroots structure covers communities nationwide. For the organisers, Monday's meeting is expected to serve both as an empowerment platform and as an early campaign mobilisation exercise for the Tinubu-Shettima ticket.
Key points
- The event is expected to attract more than 20,000 women from across the country.
- The campaign's women mobilisation directorate is targeting 40 million votes from women for President Bola Tinubu and Vice-President Kashim Shettima in the 2027 election.
- The Nigerian Education Loan Fund has processed 1,659,853 applications as of September 2026.
