From Silence to Spotlight: Africa’s First Ladies are Stepping Into a New Era of Influence

SBB Media Founder and CEO, Stephanie Busari pictured with First Lady of Ogun State H.E. Bamidele Abiodun and some of the First Ladies who took part in the retreat.

In the heart of Nigeria’s capital, a new kind of power gathering took shape—one not led by politicians or generals, but by the women who stand beside them and often lead in quieter, deeper ways.

Over a dozen First Ladies from across Nigeria converged in Abuja for what is now being hailed as a landmark in African leadership: a moment that redefined visibility, influence, and the untold power of the unelected.

This was no ceremonial gathering, it was a strategic media and leadership retreat designed to reposition First Ladies from silent supporters to visible forces of influence.

Armed with clarity, confidence, and purpose, they are stepping into the spotlight, not to echo power, but to shape it, own it, and wield it with intention.

For years, First Ladies in Nigeria and across the continent have carried out work of immeasurable national value, from leading maternal health campaigns and launching skills acquisition initiatives to championing girls’ education and protecting survivors of domestic abuse.

Yet their contributions, while widespread and often transformational, have largely remained under-amplified, siloed, or hidden beneath the shadow of protocol.

Now, that script is being rewritten.
The retreat, titled “Leading With Impact,” was led by Stephanie Busari, Emmy Award-winning journalist and former CNN Africa Editor, through her strategic communications firm SBB Media.

The event was a closed-door masterclass in narrative strategy, personal branding, and digital gravitas the sort of focused training long afforded to diplomats, CEOs, and presidential candidates, but rarely offered to the women standing at the centre of Nigeria’s state-level leadership ecosystem.

This is about legacy, power, and presence, Busari said in her opening remarks. We are building a generation of African women in power who can speak with clarity, lead with strategy, and shift conversations globally.

SBB Media Founder and CEO, Stephanie Busari pictured with First Lady of Ogun State H.E. Bamidele Abiodun and some of the First Ladies who took part in the retreat.

What made the event truly historic wasn’t just its scale or structure, but its clarity of purpose. For once, First Ladies weren’t cast as ceremonial figures or silent supporters. They were positioned as a new class of institutional power: visible, policy-driven, and digitally savvy, ready to shape public life, not simply reflect it.

Each woman present received not only professional coaching and tailored tools but also a moment to reflect on the scale of their impact. They left not just with headshots and hashtags, but with a 30-day strategic communications roadmap grounded in their programme priorities, regional contexts, and audience goals.

In attendance were First Ladies from states as varied as Delta, Ogun, Cross River, Zamfara, Katsina, Yobe, Adamawa, Edo, Kaduna, Borno, and Kebbi, along with a representative from Benue, and virtual participation from Kwara and Imo.

What united them was not party, region, or rank, but a shared recognition that their work deserves more than silence. It deserves platforms.

The keynote was delivered by Her Excellency, Bamidele Abiodun, First Lady of Ogun State and Co-Chair of the Nigeria Governors’ Spouses Forum, on behalf of Chairperson Her Excellency, Professor Olufolake Abdulrazaq, First Lady of Kwara State.

Today’s retreat is about strengthening our ability to communicate with clarity, confidence, and conviction. It is about learning how to share our work with the world, not just through speeches, but through strategy. And it is about embracing the truth that our visibility is not vanity. It is responsibility.

The women in the room are driving real change. In Kwara, First Lady Abdulrazaq has advanced healthcare, education, and economic empowerment through the Ajike People’s Support Centre and her role as Malaria Ambassador, among others.

In Ogun, Abiodun’s social welfare programmes, including the SheVentures initiative, have empowered women entrepreneurs and uplifted vulnerable groups, especially children, women, and people with disabilities. In Kaduna, rural girls are being mentored in STEM.

SBB Media Founder and CEO, Stephanie Busari pictured with First Lady of Ogun State H.E. Bamidele Abiodun and some of the First Ladies who took part in the retreat.

While in Delta, survivors of gender-based violence are finding refuge and legal support. And across Katsina, Borno, and Zamfara, thousands of women are gaining new skills and access to capital—often through initiatives powered not by budgets, but by quiet determination.

For too long, these stories have lived in the shadows, surfacing briefly in local media or NGO reports, but rarely capturing the national imagination. And where narratives are missing, so too is continuity. This retreat was more than a coaching session; it was an act of preservation. It recognised the often-invisible governance work done by women in positions of influence and equipped them with the tools to articulate it, amplify it, and sustain it for generations to come.

The moment also served as the soft launch of an ambitious new publishing project: Understanding Africa’s First Ladies, a forthcoming collaborative book from Her Story Global, the storytelling arm of SBB Media.

The book will bring together First Ladies from across Africa, both at the state and federal levels, to document their leadership journeys, public interventions, and their nuanced roles in diplomacy, development, and legacy building. If successful, it will be the first comprehensive literary archive of African First Ladyship as a biography and blueprint.

The retreat, while Nigerian in setting, is pan-African in implication. Already, interest has been signalled from First Ladies in other African countries. Plans are underway for a continental series of narrative leadership retreats, curated in partnership with cultural institutions, philanthropic platforms, and multilateral organisations. The message is clear: visibility is not vanity. It is infrastructure for influence.

What took place in Abuja was a reorientation, a quiet but powerful shift in perception. It extended an invitation to see African First Ladies not as ceremonial figures or soft symbols of state, but as architects of advocacy and stewards of public impact. They are more than patrons of health centres or guests at charity galas.

They are policy influencers, bridge-builders, and in many states, the lone voice advocating for the most marginalised. Unbound by office or stereotype, they are redefining leadership in their own right and ready to speak with purpose, strategy and volume.

As the retreat came to a close, participants applauded out of recognition: of themselves, of each other, and of a power long held quietly that is now preparing to move boldly.

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