Toni Payne is a creative writer, poet, film director and ex wife of singer 9ice. In this interview with Yetunde Oladeinde she shares her experiences at the beginning, motivation as an entrepreneur and more.

TELL us about life as a Creative writer?                          

Life as a creative writer is fulfilling. The most beautiful thing about it is that I get to incorporate my two passions, photography and writing to create unique art. I also get to write stories from my imagination which I have found to be a great stress reliever.

What was the experience like at the beginning?

I would say good because I have always enjoyed telling stories and interpreting things. Its been a natural thing for me. The energy is always right.

What are some of the things you do as a visual artist?

As a visual artist, I create. I use photography as a medium to create and interpret art.

You are also a poet. How has being a poet influenced your personality?

I have always loved to write but my poetry has been a form of self expression. When I go through things, when I see things, my poetry has been shaped primarily by my exposure.

What was the turning point in your career?

The turning point hasn’t even arrived. The long term goal is success beyond my imagination. We are getting there.

What are the challenges you encountered?

For me, the challenges would be that sometimes I feel like I should have started what I am doing now sooner.

Let’s talk about some of the memorable moments in your life and career?

Oh gosh. I think recently when Mark Cuban from sharktank and Gary vee who is a huge influence in the NFT art space acknowledged my work.

That was huge for me because it solidified what I have always known.

You are also a film director, what are your memories in the sector?

I shot a film called Broken. It was my first short film and a wonderful experience. I am looking to do more.

What inspires and motivates you as an entrepreneur?

My son. Taking care of him and my family. Making them all proud inspires and motivates me.

Who or what do you consider as the greatest influence in your life?

My son. That’s my number one cheerleader. I call him my manager.

How have you been able to achieve Work-Life Balance?

It means getting up and just getting things done. I try to do a to-do list, but my day also has to be scheduled around my son’s schedule. It can be hard balancing time because it feels like there are never enough hours in the day, but I do my best. The only issue I have is that I hardly get enough sleep.

What lessons has life taught you?

The first is to protect your peace. Don’t trust anyone 100 per cent. Those who claim to love you can harm you, so stay vigilant. Stay graceful and work hard. Never let people’s opinions of you affect you or your daily bread; they will move on to the next topic soon enough. Trust your heart and stick to your convictions. One million people will give you advice, but always remember that the only advice that matters is the one your heart gives you.

What advice do you have for young people who want to go into the creative sector?

Stay focused. Stay true to yourself and your talent.

What lessons has life taught you?

Don’t trust too hard. Be kind. Work smart.

Tell us about the people you admire?

I admire so many people especially any woman who is a hustler with good work ethics.

What are the other things that occupy your time?

I enjoy reading. I tend to read more business material but I enjoy it. I enjoy playing pokemon with my son. I also enjoy travelling.

What are the things that you cherish most in life?

My family.

What won’t you do in the name of fashion?

Hahaha. I don’t know o. I won’t do anything to harm myself in the name of fashion.

Let’s talk about your childhood. How did it influence your personality?

My childhood did prepare me for what I do now. Being creative was not frowned upon. In those days, we were forced to choose to be a doctor, lawyer, but my upbringing was liberal in that sense and a career in the Arts was not seen as a bad thing.

Tell us about Toni Payne Photography?

Asides Toni Payne Photography, I also run a commercial photography business called Osha Creation. I studied video digital arts at the university; I have always had a thing for visually documenting still or moving images. I decided to get fully into photography after I left the music industry. I am a creative person whose mind tends to run at full speed, so, I needed an outlet and found that going outside with my camera calmed me down, and coming up with different photographic creations made me happy.

I always say photography saved me because, at the point when I took up photography, I wasn’t sure what to do with myself career-wise. I knew I did not want to go back to music, I also knew it had to be something I am passionate about and enjoy. So, I chose photography and it’s been the best choice I’ve made.

What was it like at the beginning?

It has surprisingly been great. When I started my business, they said it takes a while to build customers, especially because I am starting from scratch where no one knows my work or me. Within six months, I had my first few clients and it has been non-stop since.

I enjoyed commercial photography and knew it would pay the bills, but my dream was to create Art using photography as a tool and positioning myself as one of the best Visual Artist Photographers of our time.

Tell us about your make up line. What are your memories?

If I ever decide to go back to music, the money must be right. I did things back then because I had a passion for it, but quickly found out that sometimes, it is best to invest in yourself and your talent. The makeup line? I would; it takes a lot to own a makeup line.

I was young and excited and had put so much money in and when I decided to uproot my business in America to come to Nigeria, it wasn’t a smart move.

I believed in the country and was just excited to be able to do something like that there. If I were to do it again, I will stay put here in LA and just let it trickle down to Nigeria via distributors and retailers.

How have you been able to manage your talent to achieve your goals?

I create almost daily. I am no longer in school, but I am still learning every day. The skills I learned in school are helping me today with my photography. These are lifelong skills that can be applied to so many things. I am still growing, so definitely, I plan to use my current knowledge and soon-to-be-acquired knowledge to advance my growth.

I want to be a household name in the Art industry. I want my work in homes and I want owners of my work to be proud to say they own it. All my works are limited pieces, so for collectors, it’s valuable. I want to bring artistic value to the table and hopefully also groom future artists.

Has it been easy rising from the ashes after a period of challenges?

I always ask myself this question. Like, how did I even survive that episode, because every time I look back, I am baffled at how I did not break down? I think I drowned myself in my work; I stayed busy and that helped a lot.

Also, I have an amazing family. My family supported me the entire time and made sure I was very okay. I also think God doesn’t give you what you can’t handle. We might all be faced with trials in life to test us; I believe that was my test. I am glad I stayed graceful through it all, because today, I can hold my head up high and say nothing to myself. The strength that I got from dealing with that has also prepared me for the beautiful things that are coming my way now.

What are some of the other things that occupy your time?

Right now, I am 100 per cent focused on the visual arts. I spent the majority of my career doing one million things at once. This time, I just want to enjoy what I am doing and focus on growing it. I have chosen it to be my career legacy, so it requires my full attention.

MR ‘Kunle Rasheed Adegoke a.k.a. K-Rad was one of the aspirants on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Osun State during the last governorship election. He was also one of the lawyers that defended former Osun State governor, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, at the state’s election petition tribunal before he was eventually sworn in as governor. Unknown to many people, Adegoke was thrice expelled from three different institutions as a student. In this interview with GBENGA ADERANTI, he talks about the events that led to his expulsion, why he could not study journalism, his plan to rule Osun State and why he did not take any appointment under the Aregbesola administration. Excerpts:

Many thought you were going to win your party’s nomination and eventually become the governor of Osun State during the last dispensation. What went wrong?

One thing about politics in our own side of Nigeria is that it is characterised by a lot of interests. We had a campaign stating issues, developmental economics, etc. The first thing we did over a number of years was to get our priorities right with respect to how we were going to address the economic challenges prevailing in Osun State and to ensure that from there, if we were able to put things right, we would be able to meet the demands of the people, and we had set targets. We had developmental goals that within the first six months or one year, we would have to put in place certain structures to meet the income expectations that would sustain the developmental efforts that we wanted to put in place. Unfortunately, by the time the primaries came, you could see a lot of things that played out and leadership of the party determined how it would go. While we didn’t favour the idea of direct primary, the party favoured direct primary, and our agitations to make them shift ground didn’t work.

 How much were you involved in ensuring that Ogbeni Aregbesola won at the tribunal?

Even before Ogbeni Aregbesola came out to contest the election, we had been part of the team rooting for him. We identified him as someone who had done so much in Lagos as a commissioner for works. With that, we indicated interest to ensure that he would become the governor of Osun State. That played out, we went into trenches, and we did the first declaration together in Osogbo before he was attacked during the Osun Osogbo Festival. From there, we became lawyers to his political team. After the whole thing that played out during the Osun Osogbo festival, we became more grounded in the political team as well. And by the time election came up in 2007, we had become the lawyers representing him actively.

Immediately after the election, it was necessary to go to the tribunal. In fact, it was our office where I was a partner and I’m still a partner, MA Banire and Associates, that coordinated filing of petitions being led by a number of some senior advocates.

We filed roughly about 35 election petitions in Osogbo within a period of 30 days from the time the governorship election was held, house of assembly, house of reps, challenging the results in different parts of the state. The battle ran for about three and a half years before Ogbeni Aregbesola emerged the governor of the state. We played a frontal role in making sure that came to be.

 The atmosphere was very volatile then. How did you manage to escape some of the said attacks from the opposition?

It had to do with the grace of God no doubt. However, the confidence, the bravery we brought into it too. At times when you go out in a very dangerous situation and you have the cause to confront what people tagged prevailing fears, you get through unhurt and people will be wondering how you managed to do it. All through the period, we kept doing our work and with the conscience that we were doing the right thing. We kept shouldering on, and at the end of the day, there was no single moment that there was an attack on us. I think to a large extent, we must not only give credit to ourselves, we should also give credit to all political actors that identified lawyers were doing their jobs, including the ACN and PDP.

The thugs of political parties might be attacking one another, might be attacking fellow politicians but the identified lawyers were not being attacked even when they were not happy with what they were doing. When we fought in court among ourselves as lawyers, they still identified lawyers, just as judges might be attacked verbally, the same way there was no physical attack on lawyers.

Having participated in the emergence of Ogbeni Aregbesola as the governor of Osun State, one would have expected you to serve in his government, but you were never part of the government for the eight years. What could have been responsible for this?

I personally do not like political appointments when it comes to serving as commissioner or what have you. Probably the scenario might change. But at that particular point in time, I didn’t consider it imperative. Three factors were responsible for this. One, I will give credence to my leaders, among whom is Dr. Muiz Banire (SAN), who was then in government serving in Lagos State as a commissioner and two of us, myself and my colleague, Dr. Ajibola Bashiru, who is now a senator running the chambers. He is from Osun, he is from Osogbo and I’m equally from Osogbo. He is from Osogbo Local Government and I’m from Olorunda Local Government. The two local governments are in one town; the town of Osogbo.

I willingly conceded. If an appointment would be given to Osogbo, it was likely to be one, and why would we be fighting over a political appointment? When the two leaders, Ogbeni Aregbesola and Banire sat and they were debating on who should go, it was to their credit that Bashiru should go and I waited in the chambers, which I felt was good on my part. I’m older and I felt comfortable. I was much more interested in my ultimate goal of becoming a Senior Advocate before I would clock 20 at the bar and later contest to become a governor. So I felt the concession was well considered that he should go.

It is said that you facilitated sukuk bonds popularly known as an Islamic or Shariah-compliant bond. What did you do and how impactful was the bond to the economy of your state?

The idea of the need to source sukuk brought about by Ogbeni Aregbesola was a fantastic idea. One, sukuk is an Islamic form of finance that is not built on interest, unlike the conventional bonds that we are used to which in any case attracts interest and upon default, you know that there are consequences or what have you. However, there are structures, there are legal regimes that regulate the two to ensure that there won’t be any default and it is inbuilt into it that from what the state is entitled to from the federation and also through its internally generated revenue, some would have been apportioned on a monthly basis that will be feeding the repayment plan.

I was one of the solicitors that did the work to prepare all the documents and what have you fundamentally on the sukuk. Drafting the documents, reviewing the documents, we did a lot of work in that area. To God be the glory, that was the first sukuk bond that was raised in Nigeria which I was a major participant in bringing it to bare.

And raising funds from the financial markets thereafter, you will be paid in tranches that might have been contributed. With that, it will open up the economy. Some of the money would have been used in financing building of roads, rehabilitation of roads from one town to another or what have you. The essence was to open up the economy to ensure that things produced in the rural areas easily get to cities and from there it will get to other markets outside the state, and I think that was substantially achieved.

The roads credited to Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola were actually constructed with sukuk. Even the schools some are saying today are beautiful were actually financed through money raised from bonds. If that had not been done, if that had been based on the income of the state, maybe the state might not have those structures, might not have those roads. Those roads are still there till this moment.

The argument is that with these bonds, Osun State will be in a serious debt in the next 20-30 years, and people like you who want to become governor might have a lot of problems to contend with if you eventually realise your dream…

Well it is just mere conjecture.  People inflate these figures. No state in Nigeria will be allowed to borrow against the next 20-30 years. Bonds don’t work that way. In fact, the total time for repayment or what have you was about seven years, and now the state has fully paid back in respect of those ones. No state can take more than its income. The law doesn’t allow that. Those who say that we have mortgaged whatever; it is not true. It doesn’t work that way because there is no lender that will lend you that amount of money that they know you won’t be able to repay, because the money will be coming from some PFAs and some other institutional investors. Their money must come back; there must be returns on their investment. If they know that a state is growing insolvent they won’t be comfortable lending that state money. That is why most banks won’t lend out money to a state whose economic fortunes are already subjected to precarious economic situations.

However when you talk about finances of a state being poor and many of us coming out to run, yes, these are things we actually did a lot of work on. If eventually we become the governor of the state, it will not be a sing song of we are in debt, we are owing, the IGR is low, the money is not coming from the federation or what have you. How do you take care of this? It is only if someone has a good knowledge of developmental economics that he can volunteer and say creditably that ‘I want to be governor.’ It is not enough for you to wake up one day and say I want to be governor; what are you going there to do?

There were many politicians who came out and said they wanted to be governor. I said there is debt on the ground and there is hunger in town. How are you going to address this? They said ‘let us get there first.’  We cannot subject the future of the unborn generation to gambling. The first thing I did was to study the realities. We were able to look into the resources available to the state. We have a huge amount of land resources which as at today are still not cultivated. At that point in time, we could conveniently say that the amount of cultivable land in Osun, not up to 10 per cent was under cultivation. If in every local government we could get up to 1,000 hectares of land that will be appropriate into agriculture because every government say there is a lot of money in agriculture, we must go into agriculture. No, it doesn’t work that way. You must understand how agriculture finances the economy of a state, how to generate money from agriculture.

Then you talk about tourism. There is a lot of money in tourism, yes, but you must develop tourism to the equivalent that it can bring in income. If you don’t make it marketable, it is impossible for it to generate income. Then industrialisation or what have you. These were the areas we mapped out. How did we calculate we were going to do it? In the first six months of the first one year. Now in Osun today we don’t produce to even meet local demands. For instance, corn. We know of a poultry farmer who brings in 11 lorries of corn from Kastina on a weekly basis. Assuming one lorry load is sold for one million naira, that is 11 million naira every week. In a month it is about 44 million naira and in a year 528 million naira leaving Osun to go to Kastina.

We need to have what is called monocropping in agriculture. The idea of monocropping is that over a vast area of land only a single crop will be planted and it will be on a plantation scheme on a very huge commercial scale. By the time we go into this, you will discover that we will be meeting local demands of the populace. Two, we will have more to sell to the outside market to which we can now make money. The first thing we did was to study Osun agriculturally. We know where the rice belt is, where the tobacco belt is, and we know where yams can grow very well.

If you look at the entirety of Osun, everywhere you go you will discover that you see palm trees. The implication is that we have the capacity to produce red oil in large quantities and we are not exploiting this opportunity. We are not deploying our resources to mass produce these things and there is much more money in red oil than petroleum. I made the argument to the head of NIFOR, Nigeria Institute for Palm Oil Research, Chris Baywood Ibe, and it was when I told him that it was picked. I don’t know whether he advanced the argument when Emefiele (CBN governor) was there, he picked it, and I can say that authoritatively.

When we talk about food crops we are not meeting the target. When you are talking about agriculture, don’t look at agriculture from the angle of producing raw foodstuff, raw cocoa or raw cash crops alone; you must look at processing. I went abroad, I looked at organisations, processing industry or what have you that will translate our processing dream into reality.

I was in California where I went to understudy the agricultural system, California State University, not as a student but as a visitor. I met two of their professors there: the head of the department of agriculture, the head of the department of agronomy. I brought two of them to Nigeria to experiment because by then California was generating 79 billion dollars from agriculture annually and by 2018, it had become 100 billion dollars. I understudied them. I could see vast areas could be cultivated for a particular product, and when it comes to processing, we try to put structure in place, in terms of preservation silos or what have you. These are all the things we had already mapped out. We have the blueprint already with us till today. We are updating with the new technology that is coming on a daily basis. By the time we go into food processing, we will have finished products reaching the market.

When you have all these things in production, you must establish the market where you are going to sell it. I look at Lagos, till today in Lagos, we don’t have food security. There isn’t enough to meet the needs of the people. We did that research; we came up with very viable data that we still don’t have enough to meet food. The first thing I did when I became a gubernatorial aspirant was to form an economic team made up of successful agriculturists, financiers or what have you, who came together and we built a very fantastic blueprint on how to drive the state.

It was in the same way we looked into tourism. The first thing I did was to know how many tourist sites we have in Osun. We have 64. Everything is on my phone here. But the majority of these tourist sites are tourist jungles that will not attract anybody. Look at the grove in Osun. Osun Osogbo is a world heritage and there is nothing there to attract tourists. The few ones that are coming are not making anything substantial out of it.

The former governor also had fantastic ideas but there were cogs in their execution. Have you put this into consideration?

Ogbeni succeeded in a number of areas and kudos must be given to him in that regard. There were shortcomings in some areas or those areas we have to identify. Those are the things we will first of all look at. These are things you mention and it might look as if you are criticising. No, there are lessons to be drawn on why the state could not achieve some of the economic goals, because immediately after the 2014, 2015 recession set in, money was not coming from the centre anymore. The little that was achieved in terms of IGR improvement was what the state was using to balance the debt obligation as well.

The state had borrowed money in terms of economic fortunes at least being on the same variable, the variable being constant with the expectation that the amount coming from the federation would at least be 3.4 billion naira and would remain constant. And with that, if the state’s obligation monthly were to be deducted, the balance would keep the state on. But unfortunately, money was no longer coming into the federation account and there was little or nothing to share. There were times the state received minus 20 million naira, meaning that the state again was indebted to the federal government. The Federal Government had to balance state obligations to its lenders. In such a situation one would not expect miracle to be performed by Ogbeni or whoever was in power. There were calculations that did not work out and we must learn from such that we don’t make calculations on variables we may not be able to control. That is why it is important that the areas we can control in terms of local investment or what have you, we quickly consolidate on them.

If the IGR of the state was developed enough to meet its obligations for that period, probably, that was what happened in Lagos at the time. No state in Nigeria is more indebted than Lagos. I was a party to the N100 billion Lagos raised December 2019, January 2020, I was among the solicitors that worked on it and made it possible. I understand the theoretic and practicality of all these things, how they actually work. You see that if the IGR of a state is not big enough to mop its debt obligations, it will run into a crisis when it has an exposure bigger than its income. That is a lesson I learnt about what transpired during Ogbeni’s administration. He had fantastic ideas, he had good intentions, but the road to hell is paved with good intentions .Kudos to him in respect of the good things he was able to achieve. However, in some areas when the economic crisis came, it more or less swapped the government and the government was not able to meet its basic obligations like payment of salaries and what have you, which he had taken for granted.

He paid 13th month salaries to workers as at 2011, 2012 when the state was buoyant. One would say that yes, it is a lesson that cannot be reversed but we can plan in anticipation so that it does not repeat itself.

At what point did you decide to become a lawyer?

I decided to become a lawyer when I lost the opportunity to achieve my first career intention. My original plan was to be a journalist, at least while going to the university. There could have been some earlier dreams that were not possible, but as at the time I was going to the university, I had made up my mind that I wanted to be a journalist. As at 1988/89, I had an opportunity abroad to study Law, but I felt like no, I didn’t want to be a lawyer, and lawyers would always be defending oppressive laws, coming from Marxist background.

By the time I got to the University of Ilorin as a firebrand activist, it didn’t take time before I was expelled in my final year. Upon that crisis, five of us were expelled. I had to come back and think about what to do? While fighting the battle in court, I decided to go to another university to write UME again to go and study Law, because when Mr. Ayo Olanrewaju, a debonair lawyer who had everything going on for him, he came to argue our matter in Ilorin, I felt the only thing I could do was to go and study Law. That was what brought me into Law.

Why were you expelled from the University of Ilorin? What impact did that have on you?

I was the Secretary-General of the Students’ Union, University of Ilorin. I was also the Secretary of NANS, Zone C and Zone C extended from Ilorin to Maiduguri. We were having a running battle with the authorities of the University of Ilorin because of the authoritarian nature of the university authorities. We had a confrontation with them, five of us were suspended. It led to a big protest, a building got burnt because somebody was using gas cooker and when the policemen came, they shot tear gas canister, one of them went into the building, landed on the gas burner, the building went up in flames, and the university was shut. That was February 1992. Five of us were expelled.

The expulsion was very traumatic. I think it is high time university authorities learnt a lesson that you don’t destroy a student, no matter what, by expelling him. Expulsion was an academic death sentence. If care is not taken, the expelled student might not have the emotional balance to gather himself to make the future better. Many of our colleagues who were expelled and who didn’t get back to the university today are not living encouraging or enviable lives at all. The expulsion was a very traumatic experience.

I had old parents to whom I couldn’t run to for them to finance me to another university. Writing UME was not a pleasant feeling at all. I got admission into the university in 1989 and I was expelled in 1992. I was in my final year because I used my A level result to upgrade when I got admission in 1989. By the time we were given admission into the University of Lagos, we did another UME in 1993. There was the June 12 crisis, the University of Lagos crisis, that was when Sowore was matched. The ASUU strike, we didn’t enter the university till 1995. While in the University of Lagos, I was expelled in Part 3 as a student leader. It wasn’t a pleasant experience at all. It took 14 years to bag a certificate with which I could earn a living. But to God be the glory.

Do you have any regrets about not studying journalism? And would you say your expulsion from school was a blessing in disguise?

Yes that is the way I will characterise it because it gave an opportunity to try another field of study. Two, it has made me a professional in another field. I would have been a professional journalist anyway, having studied English at the University of Ilorin and the way the curriculum was in those days, even without going to the institute of journalism. Journalism was a field and still a field I take a lot of pride in. My tutelage in the University along that line gave me a lot of opportunities in terms of writing, in terms of editing. Today I will say if I have a story to pass across to you, I do the story myself, and if there are any other things with the modern standard, they can easily do that. It has really helped me. It has facilitated my study of Law, made it easier, the maturity and the level of knowledge acquired.