“It started feeling serious when important people started calling me ‘Item Seven’ – Toke Makinwa recounts COP28 experience

A well-known media figure named Toke Makinwa has shared anecdotes from the COP28 Climate Summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates.

Online outcry followed Toke’s inclusion in Nigeria’s 1411-member COP28 delegation, with many people questioning her attendance.

The actress said in the most recent edition of her podcast, “TokeMoments,” that she didn’t care about the internet response at first, but that she started to take it seriously when some influential people started referring to her as “Item Seven” at a hotel in Dubai.

During her visit on the podcast, Nollywood actress Ini Edo questioned Toke, saying, “How did your attendance at the COP28 Climate Summit in Dubai go? Did you get into the conversations from the panels?”

In response, Makinwa stated that she had completed all of her goals and that the reaction was one of the main themes of COP28.

She said, “Yes. I accomplished everything I set out to do with it [COP28]. I was just shocked [by the uproar]. And I think because Dubai is three hours [ahead of Nigeria], I woke up to see the backlash on social media.

“For me, it started feeling serious when important people started calling me. And I think that for me was funny. I walked into this hotel in Dubai where they were a lot of important people, all of them have seen the backlash and they started calling me ‘item seven’ and it was funny. We all just laughed. It was so funny.”