How Nigerian Youths Successfully Led The #EndSARS Protests
On a quiet December evening in Tunisia 1984, a fruit seller Mohamed Bouazizi set himself on fire. He set himself on fire. That story resonates with me. On that fateful day, Mohammed had been harassed by government officials and his goods seized, he attempted to get redress for the injustice but wasn’t even given an audience. A frustrated man set himself on fire that day, He couldn’t take the humiliation, struggle, corruption, and injustice anymore. His act of self-immolation, though done in response to his personal frustration, sparked tremendous anger in the large Tunisian public, and the Arab Springs was born.
The Arab Springs are a series of protests spearheaded by young people, who used social media to drive their cause and spread their battlecry, from Tunisia to Libya. On January 14, within a month of Mohammed’s action, President Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali of Tunisia, who had been in power since 1987, was forced to resign and leave Tunisia as demonstrators marched in Tunis, many of them carrying signs and banners with Bouazizi’s image.
It’s common rhetoric that Nigerians have a high tolerance for suffering, injustice, corruption. Fela in his song titled Shuffering and Shmiling, released in 1978, said, “Suffering and smiling! Every day my people dey inside bus. Every day my people dey inside bus. Forty-nine sitting, ninety-nine standing. Them go pack themselves in like sardine.”
This was in 1978, 42 years ago, the situation was bad, today, it is dire. And finally, it seems like the Nigerian populace is no longer smiling. Particularly the youth, who make up 60% of the countries’ population.
There was no Mohammed setting himself on fire in the streets to spark outrage in the minds of the people, but the killing of a young Nigerian by men of the Special Armed Robbery Service (SARS), who have become an effigy of a much larger problem of corruption and lawlessness in the Nigerian government, sparked a fit of terrible anger in Nigeria’s digital natives.
Very soon, talks of going out into the streets to protest this ill began to circulate on social media. Historically, calls for protests have not gone well in Nigeria. These activities eventually get frustrated by meddling government officials or members of the police force issuing thinly veiled threats to discourage would-be protesters. Rather, calls are usually made for more peaceful alternatives: behind-closed-door talks with a few representatives of the agitating body. The end is always the same, a gradual quieting of the rumblings and a slow return to normalcy.
Expectations were that the #EndSARS protests would take a similar route and would be over before they even began. But the protests are now on the fifth day with no sign of slowing down. Nigerian youths are on the streets and on social media, crying out and making their voices heard. They are saying “we will no longer take it. These killings, injustice, corruption, crime, and irresponsibility; we will no longer take it.”
Not only have protests been carried out in the streets of cities across Nigeria, they are also being pushed heavily online, with the #EndSARS hashtag trending internationally and attracting the attention of foreign media, and several international players. There is now a global call for an end to police brutality in Nigeria.
The SARS unit of the Police force has a very speckled history. Four times in five years, calls have been made for the disbandment of this unit, on allegations of police brutality, excessive use of force, and illegal activities by members of the unit. Too many testimonies abound of SARS officers, profiling young Nigerians to be criminals, engaging in their kidnap and extortion, and threatening their lives.
The profiling of young Nigerians as fraudsters or criminals, for owning phones, laptops, or cars, or dressing in a seemingly fancy manner, and then proceeding to treat them like criminals without proof of said guilt is rife among SARS officials.
People moving around in the course of their day hold a more pressing fear of encountering members of the SARS unit, than say, actual thieves and robbers. Stories of the trauma suffered at the hands of those meant to protect you saturate social media. All of these and many more allegations have led to the #EndSARS agitations.
Protests have been staged in cities in Nigeria from Lagos to Ibadan, Benin, Uyo, Calabar, Abuja, Port Harcourt, and across the country, all with the same message: #EndSARS. The political ruling powers of the country, who have a history of sidelining and ignoring the youth, (which make up 60% of its entire populace) preferring to label a generation it has not catered for as lazy, irresponsible, seems bewildered on how to handle the situation. In their defense, such level of organization and dedication in protests, particularly among the youths, are not common.
Typically, the involvement of youths in Nigerian politics has been limited to electoral activities, either in helping unscrupulous politicians to hijack elections or canvassing for their votes. Rarely are they involved in actual governance or policy making. For context, the Minister of Youth and Sports Development, is Sunday Dare, a 54 year old man. The Special Adviser On Social Media, Lauretta Onochie is in her 50s. You get the picture.
The organic form the protests have taken also come as a surprise and threat to the ruling class. There doesn’t seem to be any discernible leader of these protests, the youth have organized themselves into a flat and transparent structure speaking with one voice, #EndSARS. Financial contributions have been made, protests are commencing orderly, and the government does not seem to know what course of action to take. Usually at this point of the protests, the leaders of the coalition or movement would have been called into closed-door meetings with the government, to “iron things out” and the usual course of events eventually play out. But not this time.
No one person has been appointed leader of the protests, and the protesters have unequivocally expressed that whatever discussions the government wants to have should be made in public before the press.
Protests have however not been without violence. Agitators have been shot at, arrested, tear-gassed, beaten, pepper-sprayed, and fired at with hot water cannons; the government has met peaceful protests with force. There are several reports of protesters injured and some even killed.
The Inspector-General of Police, in a speech released on Sunday, October 11, stated that SARS had been dissolved. This however didn’t seem adequate. Following a method that the Police Force has employed over the years to release a statement saying that SARS has been disbanded, only to have these criminals back in the streets, picking up right where they left out in a matter of weeks.
The IGP’s speech did nothing to placate the protesters, sparking a new wave of rage instead, with evidence being released of similar speeches and tactics by the government over the years. What happens when people lose faith in their government?
On Monday, October 12, President Buhari released a video stating that SARS had been disbanded, reinforcing the IGP’s earlier statement. Only a few hours after the president’s speech, reports of a protester killed in Surulere, Lagos filled the air. Members of the police had killed a protester. What happens when the Commander in Chief can’t control the police force?
The President’s speech did not have the desired effect of calming down the citizenry. Protesters are not backing down, the death and violence they experience have only spurred them on.
The SARS problem of lawlessness, corruption, and brutality, is only a microcosm of a larger governance problem. The police force is the dirty feet of a rotten corpse, along with the executive arm of government, containing the President, governors, and their deputies.
The executives don’t make rules, but the executives in Nigeria have become a law unto themselves. And that is just as a result of the breakdown of law and order, which reflects a failure of both the judiciary and legislative arms of government.
The #EndSARS protests are therefore a protest against the systemic failure and corruption in Nigeria’s political space. It is a protest against every form of injustice that Nigerians have suffered, saying “NO MORE!.”
If I were the Nigerian government, I would be terrified to my bones right now. The Nigerian youths have usually been disparaged by the ruling class in international settings, now all eyes in the world are on Nigeria. Young Nigerians have made their first move in rebellion against a failed, corrupt system that has sponsored the extravagant life of the political ruling class, which has recycled the same set of greedy, power-hungry men from 1960. How will the Nigerian government respond? Because the masses are not satisfied, and they are bent on meeting their demands. #EndSARS.
