My regret: "seeing my children leaving Nigeria in search of greener pastures." - Amb. Nkoyo Toyo

INTERVIEW WITH AMBASSADOR NKOYO TOYO

Intro:

Ambassador Nkoyo Toyo is a torch bearer and an outstanding female politician in Nigeria. Currently, the CEO of Green Money  Initiative of Gov Ayade of Cross River State, She is a former Nigerian Ambassador to Ethiopia and Djibouti and also served as the Permanent Representative to the African Union (AU), Economic Commission for Africa (ECA)  and Peace and Security Council (PSC).  She is also a former member, House of Representatives and  represented Calabar-Odukpani Federal Constituency and has served as a Board member of several international and national organisations.

A great campaigner for the advancement and empowerment of women and girls, Ambassador Nkoyo Toyo stands out in numerous endeavors geared towards  enabling better livelihoods especially for the poor, women and youths in the society.

In this interview with GLOBAL ACHIEVERS in Nigeria, Ambassador Nkoyo Toyo relives memories of her childhood years and shares stories of her successes and some setbacks in the course of her career. 

GAM: Can we meet you?

TOYO: I am the seventh child of Etubom Esu Bassey Duke and Evangelist Blessing Bassey Duke.

I trained as a lawyer with an LLM as well as M.A in governance  and development. I started as a state counsel in the Cross River State Ministry of Justice and became involved in issues of human rights, gender and development. I later migrated into politics and became of a politician. In my years in the gender and development work, I  was the founder of a national NGO known as the Gender and Development Action (GADA). 

GADA is committed to the pursuit of gender equality and women's empowerment in Nigeria and a vision to see a more socially equitable 

A former Nigerian Ambassador to Ethiopia and Djibouti, I also served as the Permanent Representative to the African Union (AU), Economic Commission for Africa (ECA)  and Peace and Security Council (PSC).  

Also, a former member House of Representatives, I represented Calabar-Odukpani Federal Constituency. I have also served aa a Board member of several international and national organisations.  Currently, I support His Excellency with the implementation of G-Money, an agriculture initiative of Governor Ben Ayade.

GAM: How was growing up like and what really influenced you as a child? 

TOYO: My very early childhood years were impacted by the civil war as my family was trapped in Biafra. Not withstanding, we lived in relative safety owing to the good will of the Oguta people of Imo State.  My maternal grandmother is Oguta and her family was extremely accommodating of us

GAM: Can you share some of those childhood moments that formed unforgettable memories?

TOYO: Though very young, the one that stayed with me was seeing the suffering of the war and remembering how people were moving around within Eastern Nigeria in search of safety. .It will be recall that they were not only trekking long distances, they were also trying to avoid the invading Nigerian forces and at the time because of a deliberate policy of starvation of the Biafran enclave, children suffered from kwashokor and malnutrition. These movement of persons as refugees and IDPs remain ingrained in my very young and innocent mind. I had always known first hand that conflicts are bad for the citizens of countries and just the sheer sense of pain, suffering and deprivation would put things in context for all to see. 

GAM: You have been involved in active politics and have held several elected and appointive positions. What is your perception of politics in your part of the world?

TOYO: Politics all over the world results in exposure of participants to competitive spaces which raises some expectations and becomes a reason for people who are also competing to be less complimentary of each other.  Politics is about winning and using any strength or advantage available to individuals to overshadow opponents. So politics can be nasty, intense and bitter and it does not matter who is involved. However, once you know that it is about winning, men and women with interest in winning, become primed to absorb different experiences including violence, oppression of processes of voting, absence of justice fairness within the party structures, excessive use of money to procure support and even the role of godfathers in politics. However, nobody is ever prepared enough for what will be thrown by opponents on them. For women who tend to be overtly sensitive about their reputation, the effect of what is said and done can be devastating. Women react differently to these pressures which in my experience is a throwback to some of the discrimination that women suffer from the wider society, particularly when they are in the job market. Notwithstanding, I am aware that there are unique experiences of discrimination in politics for women depending on whether she is  married, divorced or unmarried. In my case, being married to someone from Akwa Ibom was used against me. The voters were fed with the fact that I cannot be trusted as I was not married to someone from Cross River and that my loyalty will be to Akwa Ibom. 

GAM: Were there times in your political career you were treated unfairly because of your gender?

TOYO: Clearly the space for inclusion of women is far narrower than those available to men and the challenges for women who have some competence is that they are seen as a threat, knowing fully well that they can easily replace men in any position.  In the end, there is need to encourage more  woman to contest so that the issue of women in politics becomes more normalized. Normalization means that they will become more  able to withstand the rigours of politics and compete on the same terms as men. One of the ways is to use affirmative action in the short term to increase the numbers as this will ensure that women form strong bases within the working committees of the party itself and are able to influence the processes being used to discriminate against women and seek ways to maintain qualified women in the race or ensure their participation without much impediments. 

A case in point is when in one election, only two days to the primaries, I was disqualified in ways orchestrated by the then party chairman Ekpo Okon. I was told that I had not attached my certificate of indigeneship to my application and so could not contest the election. This was after a lot had been done to abuse the minds of my constituents by claiming that being married to someone from Akwa Ibom i could be trusted. These tricks are usually played on people who are not seen as 'insiders' in the party politics or did not come into politics with the overt support of a godfather or party leader. In this case, the election has nothing to do with the popularity of the candidate.   

GAM: How much have you done to improve women participation in politics?

TOYO: I have been at the forefront of many activities starting in 1986 with the first political summit for Nigerian women which produced the political agenda for Nigerian women. I also was one of the national conveners of a group that tried to influence both the 1999 Constitution of the FRN. Under Obasanjo, I participated in many efforts at engendering the Constitution of the Peoples' Democratic Party and this is why we have provision within it for 35% affirmative Action. Beyond having the provisions in the PDP constitution, in 2014, I led the struggle for the inclusion of women in the organs of the Party particularly the National Working Committee of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) by mobilizing women to contest for many positions in the party and demanding the implementation of the 35% affirmative action as provided by its constitution. That did not happen in 2014 but the pressure mounted was formidable and in 2020 February, the PDP adopted at its NEC a resolution to domesticate  the 35%  affirmative action for women in all the organs of the party, starting from the wards. 

GAM: What is your take on the security situation in the country? Do you think the government is doing enough to combat killings and kidnappings in the country?

TOYO: Not only is the government not doing enough, I think institutionally the police and military officials are overstretched. There is a lot of internal disservice to the security forces and without internal cohesion and support, the country is at a loss. We are told that poor equipping and training including intelligence gathering is undermining the work of the security forces in many ways. Other dimensions are the role of ethnicity and religious bias which are deeply rooted in these organs. Apart from these, there is the lack of proper background checks on most of those recruited and their general poor educational and technical exposure which makes them victims in the hands of  sophisticated and violent criminals and insurgents.  

GAM: What is your take on granting full autonomy to the local government?

TOYO: It is  two sided.   If it is allowed to work, it would help development at the grassroots but it has been undermined for so long that the skills and competences needed to run the LGAs are lacking. Consequently, it will take time before we start seeing and feeling the advantages of granting full autonomy to the LG system. For a long time, it has served to provide patronage for the boys and this defeats the actual purpose for the creation of LGAs which was development for the people.  In all, while autonomy is needed, it has to be made to work for the people. 

GAM: Where do you see Nigeria in the next ten years?

TOYO: If something drastic does not happen to reverse the mistrust of those who govern us, I fear like former President Olusegun Obasanjo has said, there may be calls for self determination and not just the restructuring of the country. The echoes of war and disintegration are everywhere and this may become difficult to contain in due season. The clock of unbundling Nigeria is ticking very quickly and fast too.

GAM: If you were to change anything in your life. What would that be?

TOYO: I would say that I would think more deliberately about how to maintain the right balance between my national work and what I do in the state. Until 2003, I had very little interaction with the state politically. I also did not make the connection between political leadership and the work I did as a development activist. This meant that i helped to advance what could be described as an academic distancing of service to the people whether in politics or in development. 

GAM: You are the Co-ordinator of N-power in your state. How impactful do you think the programme has been so far?

TOYO: Let me start by commending any form of Social investment programme because it bridges the gap between the provisions of government to the general population and the ability of the state to make up for the circumstances of the vulnerable. I believe Npower which was under the National Social Investment Programme (NSIP) was one project that has been overshadowed by the 2019 elections as the youth in many states were seen as agents of the ruling party. This impression is not entirely true and hopefully now that the new Ministry of Humanitarian affairs and Social Welfare is reviewing the NSIP,  it will do divorce of politics and better positioned to assess its achievements from the perspective of its vision and purpose rather than in terms of monies spent which was phenomenal. Nigeria with its size of extreme poverty population needs a social investment programme and this was an ambitious attempt to shift the country towards some redistribution of wealth through creating employability among Nigerian youth.

GAM: How do you combine your busy schedules with family life?

TOYO: I do much of my work from home and this gives me access to what is going on around me and I can intervene at will.

GAM:  What are your hobbies?

TOYO: I love dancing and engagement in Efik cultural activities

GAM: What advice do you have for the youths?

TOYO: Take one thing at a time and work on it until you dominate it and became a champion or expert at doing that thing. Skills are important. You cannot talk your way through a competitive world, you will be required to demonstrate your capabilities at some point. I will tell youth that we are all talented but many young people prefer to be jacks of all trade and master of none. They can only go so far as generalist but even further as experts in something. This has implications for their  employability. 

GAM: Do you have any regret in life?

TOYO: Seeing my children leaving Nigeria in search of greener pastures elsewhere because of the state of Nigeria's economy and the country. They increasingly are building a life for themselves in other countries and are not likely to return to share in my life long vision for a better country. 

GAM: What really do you want to be remembered for?

TOYO: I believe in my time in Politics I will like to be remembered for the future I made wtithin the state, particularly my campaign for the issues of Bakassi, the attraction of a large Shongai type farm in less than 4 years to my constituency and my many other programmes within Cross River State. I will be keen to see that the work of getting our  youth to access opportunities to better themselves will be appreciated and my over three decades of work on women's rights, which resulted in several national efforts will be stamped in the annals of the history of Nigeria as was the case with Mrs Margaret Ekpo.

GAM: Thank you for granting us this interview.

TOYO: You are welcome.