The First Lady of Nigeria, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, has donated three state-of-the-art mobile clinics to strengthen rural healthcare delivery, with two units presented to the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) and one to the Taraba State Government.
The donation, made under the Renewed Hope Initiative (RHI) Health Support Programme, was formally presented on Tuesday at a ceremony held at the Nigerian Customs Service Headquarters in Maitama, Abuja.
Speaking at the event, Senator Tinubu praised successive batches of corps members for their pivotal role in driving NYSC’s health interventions, noting that the mobile clinics would significantly enhance the Scheme’s medical outreaches, particularly under the Health Initiative for Rural Dwellers (HIRD).
She explained that her visit to Taraba State last year informed the decision to donate a mobile clinic to the state to complement its healthcare delivery efforts.
The First Lady stressed the need to extend the dividends of democracy to all Nigerians, regardless of ethnic, political or other affiliations.
“Love on wheels represents care in motion — strengthening healthcare delivery beyond hospital wards, improving access, shortening response time, and supporting flexible and reliable health services, especially in emergencies and underserved areas through professional healthcare givers,” she said.
In his remarks, the Director-General of the NYSC, Brigadier General Olakunle Nafiu, described the donation as a timely and strategic intervention that would greatly expand the reach of the HIRD programme.
He said the philosophy of the Renewed Hope Initiative, anchored on the belief that “health is not a privilege but a right,” aligns with the NYSC’s mandate to deliver free healthcare services to underserved communities.
General Nafiu disclosed that since the launch of HIRD in 2014, NYSC medical personnel have provided free primary healthcare, maternal services, malaria testing, health education and disease prevention campaigns to more than four million Nigerians nationwide, benefiting an average of about 360,000 people annually.
He added that in 2025 alone, over 6,300 corps medical personnel, including more than 2,300 doctors, were deployed to remote areas to improve access to healthcare.
According to him, the two new mobile clinics will enhance operational capacity by enabling the NYSC to reach more communities simultaneously and attend to tens of thousands of additional beneficiaries.
“What has been done today has renewed the hope of millions of Nigerians,” Nafiu said, adding that the donation should serve as both support and a challenge to the Scheme to do more in extending government presence and quality healthcare to those who need it most.
He assured that the mobile clinics would be effectively utilised and that their impact would be felt across rural Nigeria.
Also speaking, the Governor of Taraba State, Dr Agbu Kefas, thanked the First Lady for the gesture and reaffirmed his administration’s commitment to improving the welfare and healthcare of residents of the state.
Elijah Adeyemi
