President of One Love Foundation, and foremost human rights activist, Chief Patrick Eholor has spoken on what his organization has lined up for 2022.
Eholor, who spoke with Jungle-Journalist.Com, enumerated reasons why 2022 is another year for the empowerment of the less privileged. He says prisoners deserve a second chance.
Hear him;
There has to be something new in our lives. In the area of activism, we will never relent, until the country or the state gets nuh better. So I am not going to quit activism. Quit it for who?
There is a lot to be done, only a little has been done. A lot of people are also coming out to support what we are doing, so am not a lonely voice in the wilderness again. So if I, chief Patrick Osagie Eholor can do it, they also can do it.
We are also happy that the Nigerian government are begining to give us a listening ear.
However, we want to take it a little further, because when you are not informed, you are deformed.
So we have come up with a project called Second Chance. A lot of people who are in prison are there for them to be reformed but they never get the reforms. Money budgeted for them doesn’t get to them,for medicals, it doesn’t get to them, for feeding it doesn’t get to them.
And then, when these people come out of prison, they become more hardened than they were before they got into prison. So I am going there with my team to look at the ones who wish to continue their education, by scholarship, by books, or by other means.
For those who feel that education is not their line, we will also see how we can engage them, apprentice them, so that they start doing something and don’t go back to crime when they leave the prison yard.
You just spoke about reformation of prisoners, which you plan to take up. This is a huge project. How do you intend to fund it, with the numerous prisons and prisoners across Nigeria?
It’s not about the money, it’s about the will. Once you have the will, everything is possible. I am starting as an ordinary citizen. I want to take up this project the same way I had taken up the police reforms, reformation of the military, social justice, independence of the judiciary, that’s the same way I am going to do this. So it’s not about money.
Money is important but there are many things you can do before the money comes in.
So, your question is very valid but I am not going to take the whole country at once. I am going to take it, a little drop if water.
Am sure that when I start doing it, there will be other men of goodwill in Nigeria who will want to be part of it. Perhaps in the future, if some of the NGOs abroad or in Nigeria see what we are doing as meaningful, I am sure they will also support us.
So, the beginning of anything is what of hard, not the end.