And the thing with female bosses who are sexual harassers like Toyosi is that it’s not only the men who suffer. In fact the women somehow end up suffering even worse because she sees ALL of them as competition.
That’s why Toyosi sabotaged women’s careers at BBC Africa.
“Sweet Sweet Codeine” headlined by Ruona Agbroko in 2016, Toyosi tried to get Ruona taken off the project at the last minute after working on it from day 1.
The goal was to bring in an external stringer to headline it so that Ruona wouldnt get to shine. But Ruona was streetwise.
She did the same thing in 2019 with Sex for Grades. She found out that Oge was working on the documentary in her own spare time, and she engineered events such that Oge’s name was taken off, and then an external contractor (Kiki Mordi) was parachuted in to take Oge’s shine.
She did the SAME thing again in 2020 with the Abule Ado Explosion documentary, which was Dami Banjo’s work from top to bottom.
At the last minute, she got Dami kicked off the production and brought in Fisayo Soyomvo to headline.
Fortunately Fisayo publicly credited Dami.
Once you were a woman at BBC Africa Languages Division or Lagos Bureau, your existence was a threat to Toyosi Ogunseye.
This woman’s entire life revolves around trading favours using her vagina, and viciously bullying and sabotaging other women so they can’t do the same to her.
There’s nothing written here that BBC Africa does not know about in far greater detail than I do. Multiple petitions have been written and nothing happened until someone attempted suicide, then they waited 6 months and quietly gave her N5.5m hush money, then fired her.
When some of us who cut our teeth in these big money traditional media organisations decided to exit and go fully independent to the point of being what some former colleagues consider to be rogue, there are reasons why.
Nigeria’s dysfunction is like an onion.
Multilayered.
It’s not only the government that is corrupt in that country. Let’s be very clear about that.
The media is corrupt. The CSOs are corrupt. The tech startups are corrupt. The traditional FMCGs are corrupt. The entertainment business is corrupt. Creative spaces are corrupt.
Often to get a job in the media, particularly in broadcast media, you must be female and ready to sleep with someone to get it and to keep it.
To get your CSO funded, you must be loyal to one tiny circle of not up 10 people in Abuja. No one will come out and say it, but its true
There are tech startups that are lying to investors, cooking their books and breaking multiple laws.
There are FMCGs that cover up hundreds of millions of naira worth of internal fraud every year.
Heck, even to get an Instagram skit acting gig, you will be asked to Bleep.
Oluwatoyosi Ogunseye is a Nigerian editor, journalist and presently the head of language services (West Africa) at BBC World Service. She was the former Sunday editor of The Punch Newspaper. She is also a Mandela Washington Fellow.
Alma mater: University of Lagos
Occupation: Editor, Journalist
Employer: Punch Newspaper, BBC.
Career
Ogunseye ventured into journalism as a second year student of the department of Biochemistry, University of Lagos when Musa Egbemana gave her a shot at reporting news happening in University of Lagos to be published on The Sun Newspaper at the time when Femi Adesina was the editor in 2004 and later moved to News Star Newspaper as a senior correspondent in 2007. In 2009, she joined The Punch Newspaper as the sub-assistant editor for news and politics till 2012. Toyosi has been an investigative journalist since 2006, before she became an editor she worked for Sunday Punch as both news editor and senior correspondent, specializing in crime on both local and international levels. She is the first and youngest female editor at The Punch Newspaper
Recognitions
Ogunseye has won over 25 media awards including the health category of the CNN MultiChoice African Journalist of the Year Awards in 2011 and 2013, Nigerian Academy of Science Journalist of the Year 2013, The Future Awards Africa 2013, Child-Friendly Reporter of the Year by the Diamond Awards for Media Excellence (DAME)
