Dr. Don Pedro Obaseki
• Says I was sick, traumatised!
Kingsley Abavo, Managing Editor, Benin
On Tuesday, 14 April, 2026, the group of youths who manhandled Dr. Don Pedro Obaseki last December, have finally seen reason to make peace and beg for forgiveness.
Dr. Don Pedro Obaseki in the hands of his attackers
These youths under the command of Osaze Adun a.k.a ‘Kapuepue’ attacked and subjected Obaseki, a former Managing Director of DAAR Communications and media guru to a humiliating experience.
He was captured at the Uwa primary school while playing football on Sunday, 28 December, 2025 and made to walk bare footed through major streets of the city to the Palace of the Benin Monarch, HRM Oba Ewuare II after being stripped half naked with only boxers pants on.
This humiliating action stirred a mixed reaction amongst the people with many angered and pledged to take up the case in the court of law free of charge.
The Obaseki dynasty also expressed their resentment of the attack on their son.
It was Kapuepue who again led his group of youths to the premises of Obaseki to plead for mercy and forgiveness.
On behalf of the group, Kapuepue kneeling down said they were really sorry for all their inglorious treatment on Obaseki adding; their proclamation that he was an enemy to the Oba was not true, but a mere saying.
“Please Epa (senior man) forgive us, it will never happen again.”
He said they have come to the realization that Pedro Obaseki has been promoting the cause of the Benin nation and was never an enemy of the Palace.
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Responding, Obaseki said he was highly traumatized by the incident but having listened to the appeal from various quarters, he has no choice than to let it go.
“Everybody is aware of the events of the 28 of December and it is almost four months now. Myself and my children were very pained but there is a proverb in Benin which says: that ‘only the leopard’s cob can lick the leopard’s underside‘.
“I am an Edo man, I am an Obaseki and I wanted to use this as an affirmation that we are not the enemies of the Benin people.
“So that is the only validation I need. The only thing I wanted to say, which I will say maybe in a larger forum, is, I want to thank a few very close friends. I want to thank my family because we didn’t fall from the sky.
“Ironically, the young one behind me, (Kapuepue) his mother is also from my family.
“The Obaseki clan, we have spoken to my brothers because they have been on this for a while. We realised that we need to move forward.
“I would have seen myself as the sacrificial ram, meant to put everybody together. It is to repair, not to spoil! So I am angry, I was very angry and bitter.
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“I was traumatised, I was sick because when you beat 60-year-old man on the streets and make him walk almost two and a half, three kilometres, that’s after playing 90 minutes of football. It is by the grace of God.
“But I am coming from the farm now when they called me.
“So I just wanted to do that as a respect to my own father, and my uncles and my parents because to err is human, but to forgive is divine!
“I am not a polarising figure in this State. I am the only one who can walk into an APC party and not bother, and enter any PDP party and not bother.
“Me, I am the chieftain of the ADC, I don’t bother. I always sacrifice my party-ness for my Edo-ness. You get my point? So Edo is paramount to me!”
He reveals; he feels relief that those who once declared him an enemy of the Palace have come to plead for forgiveness and also state with their own mouths that “I am not the enemy of the kingdom.”
Obaseki who said he had decided to let the sleeping dog lie, however asked the ‘Kapuepue led youth group’ to write an undertaking; that never again would they assault any one in the State adding; that should there be a repeat, he will never forgive them.
Flowing from the molestation ordeal he was subjected to, Obaseki disclosed that he was going to set up a non-governmental organization to champion the cause against assault and intimidation on any citizen of the State.
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