Thislife — Born into the Ojora family of Lagos and married into the Saraki family in Ilorin she runs a successful property development company in Lagos; in Kwara she has begun to touch lives with her Kwara Well Being Trust.
Mrs Toyin Saraki, wife of Governor Bukola Saraki of Kwara State describes her ancestry and the status of her husband's family as a major challenge. "People look at me and they think oh you've had everything so why should you want to excel, why do you want more, why can't you just sit down and be happy with your father's name, your husband's name? Why can't you just sit down and enjoy yourself? But I've always wanted to make more of my life than that", she told Thislife.
In an interview at her Ikoyi, Lagos home recently, Mrs. Saraki said she was very fortunate she has probably the best education money could afford, qualifying as lawyer and her mother- a very strong woman who moulded her character.
She explained: "I was the only girl out of three boys, when the boys want to push me around she tells me to stand my ground. She brought me up to believe that there is nothing you can't achieve if you put your mind to it and you work hard.
"Because of my background people will think she wont get her hands dirty, she will be going round with her nose in the air. I've actually never been like that as a person.
"I have always been active in the business world, I've always wanted to work with people, so my great challenge has been getting people to drop this their pre-conception of you having everything so why do you want to enter this area".
One of the first things she did as the wife of the Kwara State governor is to take on the state motherless babies home. She said: "I went to take a look at the home where you see children who have been abandoned and children whose parents have passed away, indigent children among others".
Having gone into the home, she said two things struck her. One, the children there were well looked after, they were healthy, when you pick them up and talk to them they react to you, in fact one of the babies I carried wanted to nurse, I knew from there that their carriers some of whom have been there for up to fifteen years were actually doing their jobs right, you know if you go into a room and pick up a baby of about three to four months and he does not try to nurse from you, you know he is not being carried very often, you know he is not being very well looked after".
But she was not happy about the general environment of the place, the rooms were very dark, had no functional kitchen, the home screams of utter neglect.
She swung into action: "I just took that as a personal thing of my own, I did not just hand over the money, I got carpenters, painters, technicians, among others, we put in kitchens, bathrooms, we painted the rooms, we did the cots, got mattresses, toys. It did not actually cost that much but what was amazing about it was that when I went for my second visit after all my work men had finished my driver insisted we were at the wrong place because of the positive change in the home".
She has also been to the state school for the handicapped, which has about 398 children, which, in her opinion, is probably the largest centre of its type in the country where there were about one third deaf, one-third blind, and other children with special needs.
With N5 per meal for each child, Mrs. Saraki wonders how the school copes. " I'm sure that they (the staff) dip into their own pockets to look after these children, but they are doing a good job.
"I decided to devote myself to help. How they have even managed they should be commended, the stipend for each child is N15 for three meals, you would think it couldn't be done, but maybe because of the large number of children, there is economy of scale".
She noted "that the children are cheerful, they are clearly thriving, but so much need to be done, I pledged my support to them. This is something I think is really important,
"Those of us who are fortunate to have all our capacities unmarked, we should try and put our hands together to help".
She explained that this set of people do not need pity, coming to their aid can actually give a better understanding that this is another component of our society, that we should work with".
She has also begun work on a derelict park which she discovered close to the Guaranty Trust Bank in Ilorin,
She said of the park "Apart from the Midway Hotels (formerly Kwara Hotels), there was nowhere to take the children to go and play and enjoy themselves. There was a time I went to the bank, I looked left there was a little sign indicating a park.
"We got in and there we saw hectares of what must have been a really beautiful park once upon a time. There were empty animal enclosures, tithing there are all fallen apart, rusty old children play things and toys, in fact there was one very ancient but still alive crocodile and one very wild donkey. I looked at the plaque and it showed the place was opened in 1978".
She noted that since then nobody has thought of looking after it, to keep it going. "It made you realise that once upon a time in Nigeria, people actually cared about this sort of thing, so I decided to let that be one of my interventions", Mrs Saraki said.
Before coming out with a blueprint on her projects in Kwara State, Mrs. Saraki held wide consultations with Kwarans. She went out accessing their needs, going round the countryside, looking at everything she discovered that the components that make up the civil society were already there but mostly dilapidated and abandoned. Thus her project is two pronged: interventions and initiatives. The intervention project will be supporting existing structures, which have been abandoned or dilapidated whether belonging to government or individuals.
She explained that: "I discovered that we have so much that were just neglected or abandoned. In this first phase we are actually going to work with existing institutions, we are going to be making them whole, where they have gaps we are going to be filling the gaps.
How will she go about it? She explained "we will raise the fund, we 'll put the place back to shape and give training on how better to maintain and then we leave them to go and sustain themselves".
Mrs. Saraki explained that the initiatives project would be more long-term, these would be in the areas where she identifies particular needs, and the Trust will set up the needs, run them with the active participation of the local people in the community who will be left to maintain the initiatives.
She said because of lack of accessibility in some parts of the state, the Kwara Wellbeing Trust would establish local outpostsn in all the areas, getting local people to work on the projects.
"I really hope that when we are through, they should not really need me anymore to go there and maintain the initiatives, we can just park up and go knowing that the people are capable, they've been empowered and they have been given the tools to be able to run these things themselves and pass to future generation", she noted.
She explained that the initiative is really about making sure that every sector in every part of the state could feel the benefit of the rebirth of Kwara State to the point that they could help themselves.
Explaining further on her project, she said: "I am focusing on women and children, I believe that through our work with women and children, men will also benefit".
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Interventions and initiatives of the Trust include the area of education, where it would embark on a literacy drive for children and adults.
She said Yoruba is still obviously a language of choice; the Trust is working on increasing the literacy level in English so the children are better prepared for their working life later.
Also she informed that the Trust would be supporting the Quranic schools, hopefully with the support of international organisation so that when the children finish the Quranic instructions, they could also have lessons in English and mathematics.
"By the time they come out they should be literate, and better equipped to enter secondary school, where they will get English, maths and computer skills and actually contribute to society", the governor's wife said enthusiastically.
Her other major focus is reproductive health. On this, she explained that: "In Kwara State it is possible to get pregnant and deliver without ever seeing a medical officer; as a result, our infant mortality rate is quite high, so is our maternal mortality rate". She said while government would also be working to reduce this rate, the Trust has a lot of interventions in that area.
The art world is not left out. Mrs. Saraki informed that Kwara State has a "fantastic performing art troupe" but the troupe has no permanent home, the state has a theatre which was semi completed and abandoned by past governments. The Trust hopes to raise fund to complete the theatre, which woulds serve as home for the troupe as well as
How does she hope to get the funds to execute the projects? The governor's wife informed that so far she has actually been spending from her own purse, "but noted "I'm quite good at networking. I'm making contact with individuals, corporations, various non-governmental organisations and different bodies".
