Actor-turned-politician Desmond Elliot has said that people curse him on the streets, lamenting also that there is hatred in Nigeria’s polity.
Desmond stated this during his recent appearance on TVC’s Your View show.
The Surulere Constituency representative was addressing the criticism that greeted his comments about “children” insulting their elders during the 2020 #EndSARS movement.
Desmond, 49, said he would continue to apologise to those who misunderstood him.
He said: “What I can say is, I think forgiveness is divine. I mean, no one owns it all. Something can be your truth and to another person, it might not be. I don’t think going back to bring out those sensitive moments would do anything.
“I think at the end of the day, I apologised for, and I’m still apologising to those who must have misconstrued what I said. I said I was taken by emotions but in the end, it still didn’t take away from the fact that the hatred is too much. The polity, the hatred is too much. We are all built on love. We can change things by love.
“I’m in politics now, eight years and I still stand on the fact that love conquers all. I mean, I’ve gone out on the street and people still curse at me. But I’m not afraid, I’m not ashamed. Because they don’t understand the stress that you go through and I pick it from their point of view because someone just hoped that you could just help him or her. And at that point, you are stressed with so many things. So at the end of the day, it happened.”
He insisted he was not referring to all youth on social media as children but those who were cursing Lagos Speaker Mudashiru Obasa.
“I wasn’t referring to everybody as children. It was the people that were on my Mr Speaker’s handle, that were talking to Mr Speaker, I was referring to and not everybody. And truly, they were teenagers, when I clicked on those who were cursing at Mr Speaker. And that’s exactly what I said. But I’m sorry again. That’s what politics teaches you. You must learn,” he said.
