On the morning of Monday, October 12th, 2020, the One Love Foundation, a non-profit making organisation held a peaceful #Endsars protest at the gate of the Embassy of the United States of America situated in the Central Business District in Abuja.
After the protest the President of the organisation, Chief Patrick Osagie Eholor, had a chat with the media. Popular News brings excerpt of the interview.
In a few words tell us why we are here
We are here because of our future. We are here because of our children’s future. We are here to represent the police. To let them know that we are for them. In the past things have been very political. We have the likes of Professor Yemi Osinbajo(the Vice President), who is a Senior Advocate, who doesn’t know how to represent his constituency coming out to say “my hands are tied. I am tired of SARS. We should end SARS.”
Where have you been in the past four years Osinbajo? We should ask him. We have the likes of Abubakar Atiku coming out to say that if we reform SARS the same people are going to be the SARS. Was he not a Vice President for eight years in this country? What did he do? Now we have proven President Muhammadu Buhari wrong today that the youth of Nigeria are not lazy.
I want to give kudos to WizKid, Olamide, Don Jazzy, Davido and others. They have told Nigerians that we cannot continue like this. For many years I have been doing this(protest). I have billboards everywhere saying I want the welfare of the police to be reformed. You cannot have a gun in a policeman’s hand for twenty four hours. They don’t have therapist, they don’t go for any training, they don’t get good pay, no medical treatment, no insurance, no free education for their children and you expect them to see you and be happy with you with AK 47 in their hand? They will not. It is a reverse psychology. They have transferred their aggression to us because the administration of Muhammadu Buhari has failed. So, we are all here with our youth to say it is time for the ancestors to go back to the shrine.
What do you say about the Inspector General of Police’s announcement on Sunday disbanding SARS?
I want to say that it is not enough. They are all lipservice. The Inspector General of Police knows that many times we have said no more VIP police. I have cousins who are politicians. Some of them have what is called a battalion policing them and a community with over 10,000 people have only four policemen policing their area. We have to change this narrative.
Also, something that is very important. The Nigeria Labour Congress(NLC) has failed us. They are Merchants of Misery. The last time we had NLC was during the era of late Michael Imoudu. May his soul rest in peace. When he died his house was not roofed. Now, you have comrades who wear khaki in the day and wear white lace in the night. What we are saying is that the police should be allowed to have an organisation that will protect them. They should be allowed to do a protest so that when they drop their arms the country can be on anarchy and the politicians will know they can’t sleep well in the night because the police have not been taken care of.
We are tired of seeing the police killing our people. We are not the cause of their problem. The jumbo pay of these unscrupulous bandits we call house of representatives members and senators is too much. How can a man be getting N48million for say Ay and Nay and the police who is carrying AK 47 is getting N50,000. A hungry man is an angry man.
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