The debate over the First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu’s comments on akara and kulikuli businesses has found its way into a university examination, as a question in a Second Semester 2025/2026 paper at the Prince Abubakar Audu University, Kogi State, tasked students with producing an advocacy advertisement copy around the theme.
The examination question, sighted by our correspondent after it was shared on Facebook by a page identified as Northern Nigeria on Saturday, was set for students of the Department of Mass Communication, Faculty of Communication and Media Studies, sitting the Advertising Copy Writing (MCM 214) paper.
Question one of the paper read in part, “The First Lady of Nigeria, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, has asked you to do an advocacy ad copy with the title, Beyond Akara and Kulikuli Empowerment, with the sole aim of encouraging Nigerian women and youths to embrace small-scale businesses.”
Students were then required to identify four factors to consider in writing the copy, mention three body copy styles, justify the most suitable style for the ad, and sketch the copy with images and text, altogether worth 30 marks out of the total obtainable in the section.
PUNCHONLINE reports that the First Lady had, in June, urged Nigerian women to embrace small-scale businesses such as frying akara, roasting corn and producing kulikuli, describing them as low-capital ventures that could be sustained with grants rather than loans, while addressing State House correspondents after a meeting of the Renewed Hope Initiative with wives of state governors in Abuja.
The remarks, however, triggered swift criticism on social media, with many Nigerians accusing her of trivialising the economic hardship facing citizens amid rising food prices, inflation and unemployment.
Tinubu later defended her comments, insisting the Federal Government’s empowerment programmes extended beyond akara sellers to include traders in tomatoes, pepper, vegetables and roasted plantain, while speaking at the inauguration of a hall at the Emir of Hadejia’s Palace in Jigawa State. She disclosed that the Federal Government had given N100m to the Jigawa State Government to empower 2,000 petty traders in the state, with each beneficiary to receive N50,000 to recapitalise their businesses.
The Special Assistant to President Bola Tinubu on Social Media, Dada Olusegun, also came to her defence, describing the backlash as a “performative circus of selective amnesia” and arguing that critics had ignored the scale of the Renewed Hope Initiative’s interventions across health, women’s empowerment and support for vulnerable groups.
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