Wike’s Aide Lere Olayinka Defends First Lady’s Akara Business Remark, Shares Childhood Struggles

The spokesperson to the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Nyesom Wike, Lere Olayinka, has defended comments by the First Lady, Senator Oluremi Tinubu, encouraging Nigerians to embrace small-scale businesses such as selling akara, roasted corn and kuli-kuli as viable means of livelihood.

In a statement shared on Friday, Olayinka argued that the First Lady’s advice was rooted in the reality that petty businesses require little capital and can provide families with a source of income during difficult times.

To support his position, he recounted his personal childhood experience, revealing that his family struggled to pay his secondary school fees when tuition was only N20 per term.

According to him, many students dropped out of school at the time because they could not afford the fee, despite its modest amount.

Olayinka disclosed that he was almost prevented from writing his promotion examination until a relative’s husband assisted his mother with a First Bank post-dated cheque of N40 to cover his second and third term school fees.

He said the experience left him with lasting emotional trauma, adding that his family’s situation could have been different if his mother had received financial support to start a small business such as frying akara.

“If my mother had seen someone to give her money for petty business like frying akara, maybe I would not have passed through the emotional trauma I passed through then,” he wrote.

Olayinka maintained that small-scale enterprises remain a practical means of economic empowerment for many low-income families and defended the First Lady’s remarks as a realistic suggestion rather than a cause for criticism.