It is widely known to the Journalists across the country that Chief Dr. Patrick Osagie Eholor otherwise known as the Ultimate Equal, President of One Love Foundation, Father of Nigerian Students -FONS, Doctor in Humanity, Chief and Prince of Benin Kingdom. He is the only citizen who has genieu interest in the nation’s development as a whole, he is known for channeling his time, energy, resources, love on the growth of Nigeria.
No doubt, as a dual citizen of Nigeria and Canada who is exposed to the other world refused to live in Canada but came home to plant the seed he sees in another man’s land.
Unlike many Nigerians that are running away to greener pastures, it is unbelievable for one to run from a greener pastures to where seen as a desert, this is love.
In an interview with the greatest man who loves his country like an eye, Eholor shared with the Journalists after a long schedule due to his busy life, he squeezed out time to talk. Here is the chitchat below:
Journalists: Why are you calling for reform of the Nigerian Police Force all the years?
Ultimate Equal: I have been calling for police reform after the #endsars, it will interest you that before endsars, I started the agitation by going to various police command especially in my state, Edo State and also taking to Abuja that Police officers are transferring aggressions on the citizens and I also said when I was watching the police training in videos, the way they are being tortured, it thrown me imbalanced, I was not comfortable with it which made me to say something must be done and I said a time will come when people will resist the police if nothing is done urgently.
Journalists: What your concerns about the police?
Ultimate Equal: My concern about the police now is their safety because of what happened today, we don’t know what transpired between Seun Kuti and the police but no matter what, Seun would have been calmed because police is Federal, police is not a civilian, they should be respected when they are on uniform or flash their badge and these happened because FG has dehumanized the police, they have sold pride and honour away, police now have seen themselves as beggers, I’m talking about the relationship between the low rank officers and the seniors, what the high rank police officers have done to them.
Journalists With the way and manner the police is handled by civilians as domestic servants, errand boys, instruments of rigging elections, attack dogs, amongst others, don't you think the police hierarchy from the IGP to the DPO are responsible as they have swept the Police Act under the carpet or the citizens?
Ultimate Equal: I will talk about domestic errands here. Many of the senior officers, like DPO have downgraded lower rank officers like the inspectors by sending them to bring their low age girlfriend who is a civilian for instance, there will be a lot of utterances before the young civilian girl, It is not done anywhere, until the high rank police officers show respect to the junior officers, no matter the rank, police should respect police.
Journalists: Now that insecurity is on the increase, what is your message to the IGP and the Chairman of PSC, IGP Solomon Arase (Retd), on withdrawal of officers and men from civilians who are not constitutionally entitled to have police attached to them and family?
Ultimate Equal: I posted something sometimes ago about an incident in Kogi State, no matter offense a lady may have committed, a lady is our sister, mother, daughter. We could see three policemen were flogging a lady very brutally and my heart was broken for the lady, I did not care what she did wrong, I called RTD. AIG of Police, Solomon Arase, I believe he is going to see this news and I told them congratulations that I know that you are now the Service Commission Chief, I need to work with the police, I want to sacrificially do what I need to do to help the police to be reformed, there should be a line when there is an abuse or when the police are abusing people and he replied and said my dear brother, thank you for your call that he is out of the country that he will call when he is back to discuss that, I felt it like I knew this would happen and this is unfortunate that we are living lawlessly and police now get hired by land grabbers, Yahoo boys, kidnappers and by arm robbers because they do not have their self worth again because police are for sales, I have friends who pay for police 250,000 Naira and they are lots like that just because they have some stolen money, this is pathetic that police are guarding thieves who steals from them. Also let us use the incident that happened in the University of Benin during the cash crunch, when the unknown soldiers intruded the campus and molesting the students in their homes, I thank their command for acting very well to ensure they students would be apologized to, the students did no wrong, most of the uniform low ranked officers are not trained, they just want to have something doing because of the economy situation of the country. Now, I will tell you categorically without fear of favor, about 30% of police people that we have today have nothing to do with the Police Force, they were just given black and black to wear and I think when they are at the junction when their pay is denied, they can collect and extort from people, I am not saying there are good police but 85% of the police force have to been purged seriously, we need police reform because if you do not do it, it will be worse and people will take law into their hand and police are going to be so exhausted and overwhelmed that they will not be able to curtail the situation
Journalists: What is your subscription to a National and regional conference about police and citizens' engagement?
Ultimate Equal: There should be a dialogue between the people and the police, there has to be a town hall meeting so citizens can talk as well as the police, we need to interact, the police can tell us what is their problem, we can also tell the police what our problem is too that the police are transferring the aggressions to us, because the police are not treated well, imagine a policeman getting less than a hundred thousand Naira in a month, to pay house rent, feed family, imagine seeing police getting frustrated drinking treating citizens like they are not human beings, imagine police being killed and his wife being kicked out of the barracks without no compensation and respect, no good vehicles and fuel in it to patrol, a lot of problems are in the system, imagine one man stealing money budgeted for police, I believe we remembered the story of Tafa Balogun, the former IGP of police during Obasanjo regime, who stole upto Thirty Billion Naira meant for the police and today he is dead and did not go with the money, if those kind of money were invested in the police force, Nigeria would have been better by today, so a lot is wrong, therefore, House of Assembly, House of Rep, The Senate and everyone who has police attached to them should be withrawn, if you are good and your conscience is clean what are you doing with police? Because you have things done wrong to your people, that is why they are afraid and guard themselves with the police.
The honestly thing is that the police are not serious, whenever they say they are going to take the police from the VIP, that is when they add more, whenever they say they will reduce the road blocks, that is when they multiply it, every Inspectors General of Police who has promised have failed to adhere to what they promised, if you cannot trust a messenger, you can not trust a message, nobody trust the police and no one has respect for the police, the word they used that police is your friend is used very wrongly basically in Nigeria because police are not friend to anybody even not friend to themselves.
Journalists: What do you think should be done to purge and born a new or modern policing system?
Ultimate Equal: The police need to be reformed, retrained on how to handle gun, the police salary has to be increased, police welfare has to be reconsidered, this is what was said when I was arrested at the second anniversary of the #endsars, I was taken to the police, the police were arrogant, they were very impatient to understand I was speaking for them, they humiliated me, they took me inside black maria, if it not the Canadian government that intervened, I would have been shot or killed in the jail. A lot of things us wrong, any country that does not have good policing system, do have a lot of troubles in their hand and anybody who think that we have to reach out to those whose pocket are very deep and get what you want, it is called corruption because some of the money are e gotten money, police should stop protecting who put them in this circumstances, so all the police should be withrawn from the VIP, police are not even enough for the people. Some of the police are the counter cannot even write statement, some security personnel are far better than police. I am even not happy with the head of the country, who was a military man but he does not know what security is and yet people are saying APC is good. I wish and hope things get better with lots we have seen, It is not only Seun Kuti, we should also take an instance from Burna Boy case in Cubana club, I have to enter the case and it caused Burna Boy a lot.
Journalists: What is your message to police on self-esteem and dignity?
Ultimate Equal: I don’t know what is my message on self esteem, I can’t do that, a Corper in Canada I believe they receive 65,000 dollars in a year. What will help the courage of the police is to equip them well, give them good vehicles, uniforms, gadgets, computers with accessories, good free housing, scholarship to their children, reward them so if they see anyone offering them bribe, they will arrest the person and prosecute him, they need to be treated well to avoid them be mentally tortured, the government has bulk of responsibilities to let them know who they really are to reform the police