#Repost @bukolasaraki

Inna lillahi wa inna ilayhi raji`un.

Alhaji Bamanga Tukur, former National Chairman of our great party, the Peoples Democratic Party, lived a distinguished life of service. From his time as Governor of the old Gongola State to the many responsibilities he took on at the national level, he gave a great deal of himself to Nigeria.

Over the years, our paths crossed many times, particularly during our years in the PDP. We did not always see things the same way, as is often the case in politics, but I never lost my respect for his experience, the strength of his convictions and his dedication to our nation.

As we mourn his passing, my thoughts and prayers are with his family, the people of Adamawa State and our entire PDP family.

May Almighty Allah (SWT) forgive his shortcomings, comfort his loved ones and grant him Aljannah Firdaus. Ameen. ...

As Global Honorary Patron of LifeLine International, I join the International Association for Suicide Prevention and the World Health Organization in marking World Suicide Prevention Day, under the theme Changing the Narrative on Suicide, with its call to action to Start the Conversation. In this final year of the triennial campaign, the moment carries particular significance for Nigeria and for LifeLine International’s Decriminalise Suicide Worldwide campaign.

The @WHO estimates that more than 720,000 people die by suicide each year, close to three quarters of them in low- and middle-income countries, with the @WHO_Africa Region recording the highest male suicide rate of any region, at 18.4 per 100,000. Each of these figures represents a family, a community and a life that might have been reached in time. Nigeria has remained among the few countries in which attempted suicide is still an offence under the Criminal Code and the Penal Code, deterring too many from seeking care.

The Federal Executive Council’s approval on 20 August of a proposed amendment to the National Mental Health Act, for transmission to the National Assembly as an executive bill, remains a source of profound hope, which LifeLine International and I have welcomed as a turning point. I salute Professor Taiwo Lateef Sheikh, Africa Continental Lead for LifeLine International, and the Nigeria Suicide Prevention Advocacy Working Group, whose advocacy has brought the nation to this threshold.

At the @WellbeingAfrica Foundation, this conviction is practised at the frontline, where our #MamaCare360 midwives screen for perinatal depression through the Postpartum Mental Health Checklist, and our Adolescent Skills and Drills #PSHE #WASH programming equips young people to identify distress and seek support.

Changing the narrative begins with a single conversation, in a home, a classroom, a clinic or a place of worship, where a person in crisis is met with care rather than judgement. My call today is for quality crisis support to be accessible to every person wherever they live, as LifeLine International envisions by 2050, and for each of us to start the conversation that changes a life.

#WSPD2026 ...

Congratulations to my dear friend and fellow advocate Dr @VBKerry on her appointment by @DrTedros as the World Health Organization @WHO Director-General`s Special Envoy for Health Resilience, building upon her pioneering service since 2023 as the WHO`s first Special Envoy for Climate Change and Health and broadening her mandate to resilient, integrated and sustainably financed health systems capable of responding to day-to-day challenges and emerging threats from climate change and health emergencies.

It is a privilege to serve as a Member of the Board of Trustees of @SeedGlobalHealth, which Vanessa founded and leads, and to have watched at close hand its work with governments and partners across Africa, investing in the doctors, nurses and midwives who save lives, that this appointment so rightly recognises.

I have long believed that primary healthcare builds resilience from the bottom up. At the @WellbeingAfrica Foundation we put this principle into practice through frontline investments in EmONC, AOSS and WASH for infection prevention and control, strengthening the people and systems that deliver safe, quality care every day and sustain it through crisis. It is this same conviction that Dr Kerry will now carry to the highest level of global health, championing sustainable financing for universal health coverage, investment in health workers, and the alignment of partners behind national priorities and country-led health systems.

At this consequential moment for global health, Vanessa`s appointment is both timely and well deserved. I look forward with great confidence to all that her leadership will bring to this vital mandate, and to continuing our shared endeavour with the WHO and partners for more resilient health systems and health for all.

With my warmest wishes, dear Vanessa, as you take this important work forward.

#HealthResilience
#UniversalHealthCoverage
#WellbeingForAll ...

Today marks the 60th anniversary of #InternationalLiteracyDay, observed by @UNESCO under the theme Literacy for People, the Planet and Prosperity. At least 739 million youth and adults still lack basic literacy skills, and four in ten children are not reaching minimum reading proficiency. Nigeria carries 18.3 million out-of-school children, the highest number in the world, with adult literacy at roughly 62 per cent and the deepest deficits among girls and women in the north.

At the @WellbeingAfrica Foundation we read these figures as health data. The Lancet has established that gains in women’s education accounted for a substantial share of the fall in child mortality over four decades, and analysis of Nigeria’s own survey data shows that mothers with secondary education see measurably lower under-five mortality and higher uptake of antenatal and skilled delivery care. A mother who can read a prescription, a growth chart or a danger sign is a mother better able to protect her child. Literacy and wellbeing are one agenda.

We call on governments and partners to keep every girl in school through secondary level, to invest in adult and maternal literacy, and to fund reading as the public health intervention it is. Literacy is a determinant of survival.

#ILD2026 #LiteracyForAll
#DigitalLearningWeek
#WellbeingForAll ...

Yesterday marked the International Day of Clean Air for blue skies, a timely reminder that clean air is fundamental to healthy populations, resilient economies and a stable climate, and that addressing air pollution and climate change together is essential to sustainable development.

This year, the new @UNEP and @CCACoalition report, Hidden Assets: The Economic and Health Case for Climate and Clean Air Action, reinforces the economic and public health case for integrated action, identifying 25 proven measures and policy reforms that can deliver cleaner air, healthier lives and shared prosperity.

Clean cooking remains fundamental to protecting health, empowering women and reducing environmental harm. I have long advocated for action on the disproportionate impact of household air pollution from firewood and inefficient cookstoves on women and children in Nigeria, alongside my husband @BukolaSaraki, through his service on the Leadership Council of the Global Alliance for Clean Cookstoves.

More recently, at the inaugural Terra Carta Summit convened by @SustainableMarketsInitiative, I called for sustainable and climate-resilient health systems, including partnerships with cities to improve air quality, greener health infrastructure, renewable energy, preventive healthcare and reduced carbon-intensive transport. Through Resilient Cities, Reimagining Health, this work has further advanced the principle that climate action is health action, while at Healthy Indoor Air: A Global Call to Action during UNGA High-Level Week, I joined the call to elevate indoor air quality as a global health priority.

As a Member of the @BayerOfficial Sustainability Council, I continue to advocate for solutions that recognise that human, planetary and economic health are inseparable.

From cleaner kitchens to healthier cities, clean air is a health imperative, an economic investment and a shared responsibility. Let us accelerate action for clean air for all.

#CleanAirDay #CleanAirForBlueSkies #CleanCooking #WellbeingForAll ...

A beautiful celebration of family, love and legacy. ✨

Heartfelt congratulations to my dear friend and sister, Onikepo Animashaun, and my dear brother, Bankole Animashaun, on the naming of your precious grandson, Awwal Rereoluwa.

Congratulations to his parents, Nasr and Roseline, on this cherished blessing.

May little Awwal Rereoluwa grow in grace, wisdom and favour, and may his life be a source of everlasting joy and honour to the entire family.

Welcome, precious grandson. May your path be long, noble and abundantly blessed. 💙🙏🏾 ...

Happy birthday to my dear friend and sister @Bola_Atta, a woman of rare grace, style and conviction.

Bola has devoted her career to African women and young people, to the images, the language and the platforms through which they might recognise their own brilliance. Those of us fortunate enough to call her a friend know that the generosity she brings to her work is precisely the generosity she brings to the people she loves.

May this new year bring you abundant health, laughter in good company, and every blessing you have so freely given to others. I celebrate you today, darling Bola.

#HappyBirthday ...

August carries a particular tenderness in our family.

My beloved Uncle Bade, Prince Ajibade Mustapha Ojora, would have turned 83 on the 28th, and his daughter, our dearest Abimbola “Bimbo” Ojora Babalola, 55 on the 22nd. Father and daughter, born within days of one another, both taken from us long before we were ready.

We think of them this month with great fondness. May Almighty God grant them eternal rest. 🤍 ...

I welcome the opening of World Water Week 2026, convened by the Stockholm International Water Institute @SIWI_Water in Stockholm and online from 23 to 27 August under the theme Water for People and Progress, with water and gender placed at the centre of this year’s conversation. I recall Stockholm in August 2019, when I joined @FHI360’s Ron Clemmer, Associate Director of Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Programs, and #GlobalWater2020’s John Oldfield, on the World Water Week stage to make the case that water, sanitation and hygiene are where safe childbirth begins.

The timing of this gathering is instructive, coming as the World Health Organization and @UNICEF publish their fullest global assessment yet of water and sanitation in health facilities, showing that only 40% meet the basic standard for sanitation, that around 1 in 10 have no water service at all, and that only about half have accessible toilets or facilities for menstrual hygiene, figures which describe the conditions in which women give birth and health workers practise, and which explain why so much of what we call quality care begins with a running tap and a clean, dignified toilet.

At @WellbeingAfrica, water, sanitation and hygiene has always been the foundation of our maternal, child and adolescent health work, carried by our #MamaCare360 midwives who deliver hygiene and handwashing education alongside antenatal and postnatal care in Nigerian communities, extended through our WBFA @DettolNigeria Hygiene Quest programming and curricula, delivered with the support of our social impact partners @ThisIsReckitt and carrying behaviour change into schools, households, communities and facilities, and sustained through our climate and health #PSHE #WASH advocacy alongside the @WHO for water and sanitation in every facility where a Nigerian woman gives birth.

My hope for this week is that ambition is met with financing, as we call for enforceable national standards for primary health-care facilities and for regular monitoring and reporting that measures dignity as closely as it measures infrastructure.

#WorldWaterWeek2026 ...

Happy birthday, Arc. Ade Laoye! Today @BukolaSaraki and I join family, colleagues and well-wishers in celebrating a treasured family friend, whose three decades of practice at @ECADArchitects have shaped skylines and shaped lives with the same care, building with vision and serving with an open hand. May the year ahead bring you good health, abundant joy and continued success in all you do, with warmest wishes from all of us.

#HappyBirthday
#ECADArchitects ...