Women You Should Know: Munira Suleiman Tanimu

Munira Suleiman Tanimu is the first daughter among her parent’s 16 children. The pretty Munira hails from Kaduna State and is an entrepreneur, a philanthropist and politician. Owing to her father’s political status, she grew up getting a thorough and sound political orientation. As the first daughter, she assumed her mother’s role whenever the latter was away from home – a role she enjoyed playing. Munira was highly efficient in playing the  ‘mother’ role that she became her father’s favourite and he began to trust her with the running of the home. Hence, she learned a lot about taking responsibility.

Hon. Munira had her primary and early secondary education at Essence International School, Kaduna, whereas she sat for her Senior School Certificate Examination (SSCE) at Government College, Kaduna. As against the cultural ethics and religious beliefs of the northern community – one of which is that a lady’s hand should be given in marriage after her second menstrual cycle, Munira took up the form to study Sociology at the University of Abuja. She proceeded to Harvard University, after her first degree, to study Leadership Communication, and then to Lagos Business School (LBS) to bag a certificate in Business Management. POLITICAL CAREER Picking on her political background, Hon. Munira Taminu ventured into politics in 2015 and of the four aspirants who vied for the Kaduna State House of Assembly seat at the primaries, she was the only female. However, she came in second. According to a source, Munira has declared that her motive for going into politics is to be able to positively influence the political world and change the way politics is run both at the state and national level. Although she lost the primaries in 2015, Hon. Munira has declared her intention to contest come 2019. BUSINESS CAREER At the age of 18, Munira’s father gave her some money to start her own business. This he did with all of her siblings as well. She ventured into various businesses ranging from interior decoration to catering services, and fashion outfit, failing at some and making it through others. Notwithstanding her many failures, Munira did not give up. Today, she if the CEO of Green Garden Farm, a poultry farm in Kano housing over 5,000 chickens. She also runs a town service transport service – ‘MSTS Ventures’, and an event centre. PHILANTHROPISM

The kind-hearted Hon. Munira has not withheld good from those who are in need of it. She picked the charitable act when she was ten. Munira currently runs a non-governmental Organization (Green Heart Impact Foundation) registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission on June 19, 2014. GHIF promotes and implements sustainable programmes that seek to solve specific social problems in Nigerian societies through education, nutrition, skill acquisition, and empowerment. The organization gives charity to the needy by providing food, clothing, healthcare, emergency relief materials, school materials, scholarships and business grants to empower the less privileged. It also focuses on the rehabilitation of girls and also taking girls off the street and sending them back to school, providing them with the necessary materials – books, bags, boxes of wears, mattresses and pillows, etc. In the few years of its establishment, over 50 girls have been taken off the streets and sent back to school while their mothers have been empowered in various entrepreneurial fields. The dominant hash tags used by the NGO are#BooksOverTrays #No-To-GirlChild-Hawking. GHIF is funded with 10% of the profit from all businesses owned by Munira.   References: Pleasure Magazine, Greenheart Impact Foundation