Maryam Mairo Aminu Tambuwal @40: Driving Developmental Agenda Through MMAWT Legacy Initiative

By KEMI AKINYEMI

Hajia Maryam Mairo Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, wife of Sokoto governor, clocks 40 today, 27 May, 2017. The ELITES examines her initiative, The MMAWT Legacy, which she launched last year, to empower the less privileged and give governance in the state a human face.

The current harsh economic clime in the country has compelled state governments to devise viable strategies at managing dwindling revenue to tackle ever-rising responsibilities, not only in oiling the wheels of governance but also maintaining social and economic cohesiveness. Inevitably, some of the strategies adopted are not going down well with those who feel the bite hardest: the less privileged.

Sokoto State, seat of the Caliphate, is no exception in the search for viable economic solutions. What is remarkable about the state, however, is that a credible initiative is being undertaken, not only to educate the vulnerable segments of the society on government’s plans and reasons for its actions, but also to involve them in the evolution and execution of solutions to the problems. Also remarkable, the initiative is the brainchild of Hajia Maryam Mairo Mustapha Tambuwal, wife of the state governor, Alhaji Aminu Waziri Tambuwal.

Known as the Maryam Mustapha Aminu Waziri Tambuwal (MMAWT) Legacy, the foundation’s primary aim is to give governance a human face in the state. This it intends achieving by mobilising the youth, caring for the elderly and vulnerable, and encouraging women from allstrata of the society. Focusing on driving and achieving the developmental agenda of the presentadministration in areas of going green, water and sanitation, employment, empowerment, talentidentification and management, MMAWT aims at creating more awareness on, among others,environmental sustainability – with issues like desertification and flooding in mind – and access to quality health care. In short, it is designed to uplift general societal well-being.

With components of education, enlightenment, mobilisation and participation under a carefully designed people-oriented and participatory initiative, MMAWT also intends to set up business ventures and skilled activities emanating from the rural poor, grassroots and other less empowered members of the society.

Expressing its commitment to supporting various education intervention efforts includingproviding scholarships, refurbishing and building more classrooms in remote areas and villages,
as well as improving access to girl-child education and adult literacy, the foundation equally maintains its resolve to help improve health conditions in the rural areas.

The project is certainly very ambitious. But it is also realisable, if the formidable credentials of the brain behind it are anything to go by. A woman of many parts, Hajia Maryam MairoMustapha Tambuwal – niece to Justice Mariam Aloma Mukhtar, the 14th Chief Justice of Nigeria and first woman to attain the position – has a track record of accomplishment in sectors as varied as telecoms, oil and gas, IT, and energy. The last of her parents’ five children, her mother, a successful businesswoman who died in February 2011, had roots in Guinea and Sierra-Leone; while her father, the late Malam Mustapha Balarabe, a close associate of the legendaryMalam Aminu Kano in the People’s Redemption Party (PRP), was a member of the House ofRepresentatives from Kano in the Second Republic.

Reputed for having an insatiable appetite for acquiring knowledge on every conceivable subject, Hajia Tambuwal attended Federal Government Girls College, Kazaure and Bayero University, Kano (BUK). She has also attended various courses in management and business, at London Business School, Lagos Business School, Harvard University, Wharton Business School, Pennsylvania; and top universities in, among other countries, South Africa, France and Malaysia. And to cap a distinguished career in the private sector, Hajia Tambuwal, in 2006, set up Oracle Integrated Service (OIS) Limited, an IT strategy, planning and business firm. The company organised the first ‘Nigeria's Presidential Campaign Poll’, in 2007.

Already, MMAWT is building an innovative framework, leveraging on the state’s recent signing of an agreement with UNICEF on the implementation of the 2016 work plan covering areas ofhealth, nutrition, education, water, sanitation and hygiene – to pave way for greater access by women and children in the scheme of things across the nooks and crannies of the state.

“It will be an added value for MMAWT Legacy empowerment initiative to identify with this laudable breakthrough between the government of Sokoto State and the UNICEF. As co-stakeholders, the MMAWT initiative will galvanise support for the successful implementation of the designed agreement, in line with best global practices and in tune with the sustainable development goals of eradicating abject poverty by creating sustainability, access to education, quality health care and sustainable means of livelihood to families and communities across the state,” says a confident Hajiya Tambuwal.

And to avoid the pitfalls that derailed similarly laudable programmes in past years, says HajiyaTambuwal, “a workable synergy is to be worked out for easier coordination and linkagesbetween government and identified stakeholders in the scheme as a measure of recording meaningful result and achieving result-oriented impact assessment.”

Who knows, we all may be witnesses to a veritable national empowerment model in the making.