Travails Of Benin-based Activist

Chief Patrick Osagie Eholor, an activist in Benin, Capital of Edo State is angrily lamenting the demobilizing of his messaging billboard erected near the Edo NUJ Press Centre in Benin.

According to the human rights activist also known as Ultimate Equal, he has been using the billboard to propagate his opinion to the general public for many years at a personal cost to him. But recently his advert agent discontinued his services to him for no apparent reason, explains Eholor to a radio station monitored by this writer.

All said, Eholor points an accusing finger at Edo State Government for the development, which was immediately denied by a government media aide. He advised Eholor to approach the appropriate authority for an explanation on the unfolding scenario.

Eholor, who is the President of ONE LOVE FOUNDATION, is not convinced that the state government or its agents have no hand in his travails. His reasoning is that since only opposition billboards are tampered with, then the government must be the one demobilizing such billboards or is aware of those behind the action of trying to intimidate and de-market the strident opposition forces in the state.

Eholor recalls that earlier in the year, the deputy governor of the state Shaibu, also his billbosrd attacked at night. All because he is nòw in the PDP opposition camp rejecting the governor's endorsement of Asue Ighodalo, his close confidant, as his successor.

Now, says Eholor, his billboard has technically been removed from its traditional location near the NUJ Press Press Centre in Benin for years by his advert agent refusing to renew and continue his billboard services to him. Meanwhile, the billboards of Asue Ighodalo have not been molested. So, Eholor's suspicion is that government is behind his current ordeal using the visible, strong, available and credible circumstantial evidence.

To buttress his point, Eholor discloses that his billboard advert agent has been informing him of threats from government's proxies to discontinue providing him with the services of the billboard in question. Or else, he will be sanctioned and branded an enemy of government. Finally, his agent caved in to their request, according to Eholor.

A similar billboard scenario played out in 2023 during the campaign leading to the general elections. Eholor notèd with utmost dismay. He reported that only the billboards and posters of government candidates were seen and allowed in the state while those of the opposition were systematically suffocated out of existence.

Also, the government gave its candidates free access to Samuel Ogbemudia Stadium, Benin for holding political activities denied the opposition parties.

After painfully recapturing these events, Eholor observes: "Billboards don't win elections. What does is the projects a government has on the ground."

Close associates of Eholor know that billboard or billboards, his truth messaging will endure. It is a mathematical k-constant, come rain or shine due largely to his socialixation, Spartan discipline, pathological dislike for lies and the fact that he is a self-made, independent man. No need to bootlick anyone and mortgage the truth for filthy lucre.

Read his message: "Never worry about who will be offended when you speak the truth. Worry about who will be misled, deceived and destroyed if you don't speak the truth."

Other of his fearless, profound messages on billboard and multiple locations to leaders and the masses abound. Here are some of them:

â– Hustle until you don't have to introduce yourself. Because your hustling has made you both famous and popular. Everybody now knows you.

â– The Nigeria Police are underpaid and yet we want them to perform. This is impossible. They are human, too.

â– Nigerians are suffering.... The quota system we are operating is detrimental to meritocracy and national progress.

â– Nigeria as a nation is living and running on 2 percent national revenue.

â–  Governor Godwin Obaseki has no business with the appointment of judges. He should not repeat the night inauguration of members of Edo State House of Assembly in June 2019. I hope the governor does not swear in some of the 8 judges at night this time.

Obaseki cannot send a petition to the National Judicial Council when he is the one whom by law is expected to swear in the judges in Edo State. He should allow all the judges to be sworn in and leave out the male or female judge he does not want sworn in. It is God that gives power. You are not God.

A glimpse from these acerbic messages should make the discerning mind understand why his travails won't end in a lifetime. How will they stop when his professional hobby as an NGO oracle is to speak undiluted truth to power in the open market square without stammering.

Apart from his current billboard travails, Eholor has encountered many others in the past. To start with, he suffered great trauma while campaigning with other pro-democracy activists to chase the military away and restore Chief M. K. O. Aboila-s annulled June 12 mandate.

But for his smart relocation through NADECO route to Canada, Abacha would have martyred him.

Secondly, in the nineties some persons at night invaded his compound and broke into his digitally- fortified office complex near Winners Chapel along Sapele Road, Benin for reasons best known to them.

As if these travails were not enough for him, his haters wrote a false petition against him to the EFCC accusing him of sundry crimes. The agency arrested him for questioning. He was cleared of all the allegations , later on.

Later in 2020 during the ENDSARS protest, the activism in his blood spurred him to travel to Lagos- the epicenter of the ENDSARS protest- to solidaize with the youthful protesters. While he was addressing them one day, the police swooped on him and whisked him away. He was detained; debriefed and released since he had not committed any offence by participating in the peaceful protest against police brutalities in Nigeria.

Travails strengthen Chief Patrick Osagie Eholor not weaken his activism.

After all, for him God is his refuge ensuring that the bigger and harder his travails and traducers; the more disastrous their fall to borrow Jimmy Cliff's phraseology.

Also, for Chief Patrick Osagie Eholor the raggae legend Bob Nesta Marley words are his weapon against his foes. Listen to abridged Marley in BAD CARD:" You go tire to see my face .. You can't get me out of the race.. Oh man, it is a big disgrace... When you draw bad card...'

So,drop the bad card of antagonism., says Chief Patrick Osagie Eholor