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Nollywood actress Toyin Abraham has dismissed reports that she is a member of the Lagos State All Progressives Congress (APC) Campaign Council, after her name appeared on the party’s official list for its Entertainment and Creative Economy Directorate.
“I’m not a member of any campaign council. I have said it recently. I am staying out of politics. Please disregard the supposed inclusion of my name in any campaign committee,” she wrote on Instagram.
On X, she added that the decision was not driven by public pressure: “I didn’t do it because of any bully. I did it because it was the right thing to do. I woke up and saw my name on a list I knew absolutely nothing about.”
The list, released Thursday, September 17, by the Kadri Obafemi Hamzat Media Centre, names her “Ms Toyin Abraham-Ajeyemi, Member” under the 33-person directorate, alongside Jide Kosoko (Co-Director), Eniola Badmus (Deputy Director), and fellow entertainers Bimbo Akintola, Adebayo Salami, Saheed Balogun, and Bukky Wright.
The gap between what the party has published and what Abraham’s dismissal of the list is not happening in a vacuum.
In 2023, Toyin publicly campaigned for then-candidate Bola Tinubu, but the backlash that followed went beyond criticism of her political ideology. Opposing supporters petitioned Netflix to pull her films and pressured her brand partner, Checkers Custard, to end their relationship. Her husband, Kolawole Ajeyemi, and their young son were also subjected to sustained insults and curses.
By June 2024, Toyin said she had “learnt her lesson” and would keep future political choices private. The cyberattacks continued anyway, and by July 2024, amid renewed abuse, including a post that mocked her husband’s appearance and called her a “stoppid fool” over her Tinubu support, she filed a cybercrime petition and, in a visibly distressed Instagram Live, said:
“I want to die, I’m ready to die, but before I die, a lot of my bullies will die with me,” Toyin decried.
However, after Toyin publicly dismissed her name appearing on the APC current list, the party has not corrected it or issued any statement. The council is scheduled for formal inauguration on Friday, September 18, at the APC Secretariat, Ikeja, Lagos.
