First Lady Oluremi Tinubu Storms Benue, Opens Ultra-Modern ICT Centre and Hands ₦100M Cash Grants to 2,000 Women Petty Traders

The economic and digital landscapes of Benue State received a massive developmental boost on Tuesday after Nigeria’s First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, unveiled an ultra-modern Community Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Centre and rolled out a ₦100 million financial empowerment grant targeting thousands of grassroots women entrepreneurs.

The high-velocity humanitarian sweep unzipped during the First Lady’s official working visit to Ihugh, a prominent commercial hub within the Vandeikya Local Government Area. The dual-purpose intervention lands as a defining milestone under the 2026 economic calendar, arriving precisely as the Renewed Hope Initiative (RHI) ramps up its subnational collaboration scripts with federal tech regulators to accelerate digital literacy, create self-sustaining job models, and expand financial inclusion fields across Nigeria’s rural communities.

Addressing an enthusiastic crowd of market women, youth coalitions, and traditional rulers, Senator Tinubu maintained that access to technology is no longer an elite luxury but an inevitable baseline tool required to lift local populations into the modern global economy.

“The knowledge of ICT serves as a significant tool for empowering communities, especially women, and will enable them to break into new opportunities and enhance our youth’s educational prospects,” First Lady Oluremi Tinubu declared with absolute candor during the commissioning brief. “By equipping our women with modern digital skills, we are building an unyielding defensive shield around their livelihoods and ensuring they can actively participate in e-marketing and tech-driven trade grids. Concurrently, we must support our petty traders. To recapitalize existing small-scale operations, the Renewed Hope Initiative is presenting a ₦50 million grant to 1,000 women here in Vandeikya, and an additional ₦50 million to support another 1,000 women in Makurdi and its environs. This ₦100 million total cash injection is a direct grant to our hardworking mothers, not a loan.”

The newly activated facility, which was named the Mrs. Lucy Aluor Community ICT Centre to honor the legacy of a respected local educationist, was delivered through a highly structured technical partnership between the RHI and the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), led by its Director-General, Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi.

The digital hub is fully equipped with high-speed computers, internet connectivity frameworks, and specialized training labs designed to serve as an incubation shelter where small business owners can learn digital inventory management and youth can access global learning portals. The Benue installation represents the 15th fully operational center delivered by the partnership across the country’s six geopolitical zones.

Receiving the presidency’s delegation, the Benue State Governor, Rev. Fr. Hyacinth Alia, highly lauded the First Lady’s unyielding commitment to vulnerable and low-income populations, noting that the state treasury will automatically clear backup funding scripts to guarantee uninterrupted solar power and continuous internet access across all four ICT hubs currently running within the state.

The Governor added that the administration’s investment parameters are perfectly aligned with the mother of the nation’s vision, pointing to an newly finalized 11.5-kilometer urban road project in Makurdi which the First Lady officially commissioned earlier in the day to ease transport blockages for agricultural merchants.

As local banking officials initialize the seamless distribution manual to credit the accounts of the 2,000 selected petty traders, independent fiscal analysts have highly praised the targeted nature of the grant.

By bypassing complex bureaucratic channels and delivering cash assets directly into the hands of rural micro-merchants, the initiative provides immediate macro-economic relief that stimulates local market demand, proving that true national transformation must always prioritize the financial security of the women keeping the grassroots economy alive.