Section D where other anti-apartheid activists were serving their sentences. He met Nelson Mandela there, and the two became personal friends. On 1 March 1984, Toivo was released from Robben Island, having served 16 of his 20 years. Of all his fellow Namibian guerrillas he was serving the longest sentence on the notorious Robben Island prison. Nevertheless, on his day of release he had to be lured out of his cell, not happy to have gained freedom by himself with many comrades still behind bars. After a brief stay in Windhoek he left for Lusaka to rejoin his comrades in exile. He subsequently became a member of the SWAPO Central Committee and Politburo and was elected SWAPO Secretary General in 1984. After independence From 1984 to 1991, he was the secretary general of the South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO). In the advent of Namibia's independence, a showdown was expected between Sam Nujoma, who had spent many years in exile, and Toivo, incarcerated at Robben Island. Toivo avoided this conflict, "settling" for the post of Minister of Mines and Energy, leaving Nujoma the presidency. Toivo was a SWAPO member of the Constituent Assembly, which was in place from November 1989 to March 1990, immediately prior to independence, and upon independence in March 1990 he became a member of the National Assembly. He was also Minister of Mines and Energy from 1990 until his appointment as Minister of Labour on 26 March 1999. After over three years in that position, he was appointed as Minister of Prisons and Correctional Services on 27 August 2002, switching posts with Marco Hausiku. He remained Minister of Prisons for the remainder of the legislative period but chose not to run for a seat in the National Assembly again at the time of the 2004 election, saying that he had "done enough". Toivo received the eleventh-most votes (358) in the election to the central committee of SWAPO at the party's August 2002 congress. At SWAPO's November 2007 congress, Toivo failed to be elected to the SWAPO politburo for the first time in the party's history. This was attributed to Toivo's purported link to the opposition Rally for Democracy and Progress (RDP), a party that had been founded as a split from SWAPO shortly before the congress. Toivo denied being linked to the RDP, but the claim was believed to have influenced the vote. At the SWAPO