Protests against #EndSARS is a call for social justice

Protests against #EndSARS is actually a wider call for social justice from the Nigerian youth

While the world was busy fighting the Covid-19 virus, thousands of young Nigerians were protesting on the streets across Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation (Statista). The protests were against police brutality and their call for banning SARS.

Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), a unit of the Nigerian Police has been accused of excessive human right abuses over the years. #EndSARS basically refers to the mass protests held all over Nigeria to protest against police brutality; the social movement takes its name from the hashtag #ENDSARS, used in a 2017 Twitter campaign, demanding the disbanding of the SARS. In 2017, as the use of #EndSARS hashtag started growing, two popular musicians, Runtown and Falz, planned to hold an offline march to share their objections. While they were expecting just a handful of people, they were indeed surprised to see hundreds of people turn up for the march, indicating that several Nigerians wanted SARS to go.

To provide a bigger picture, here’s a bit on the history of SARS. Back in the 1990s, armed robberies were quite rampant in most big cities in Nigeria, so SARS was setup in 1992 with the intention of cracking down on these robberies (CHOW). SARS did meet with some early successes by capturing several armed bandits, but soon reports of excessive abuse of power started emerging (CHOW). The same research says that several reports of SARS detaining innocent civilians and torturing them into giving confessions started emerging. Custodial deaths, harassment of journalists started becoming more widespread. Cybercrime grew rapidly in Nigeria in the early 2000s, but instead of investigating crimes digitally, SARS openly harassed and extorted people on the streets whom they deemed suspicious. In the past, several promises were made by the police to carry out reforms but nothing concrete was ever done, and the Nigerian youth was getting more frustrated and angered with their atrocities.

However, in the last few years, the protests have grown bigger and started attracting the attention of the international community. After a video showing SARS killing a young man went viral, people came out in large numbers on the streets to protest, sparking of the EndSars demonstrations. In another incident, several people were wounded when police fired on demonstrators, who were protesting against police brutality, in Lagos, Nigeria (BBC).

Because the SARS were detaining and torturing a lot of innocent youths, it was the youth of Nigeria who were the leading the protests initially, before the protests became bigger. Over time, SARS actions started attracting attention from concerned parties both within and outside Nigeria, and later even celebrities started raising their concerns (BBC).

Initially, the demands of the protestors included disbanding SARS or reforming it, some were demanding compensation to the victims of SARS brutality. However, over time, the primary demand of the protestors has been to scrap the SARS.

After the prolonged protests all over the world, SARS has finally been disbanded by Nigerian police, who are now promising extensive police reforms (CHOW); the unit was finally disbanded by Nigeria on 11 October 2020; a special presidential directive ordered the dissolution of SARS (Presidency Nigeria).

While it may seem that the protests were against police atrocities, more research suggests that the youth in Nigera is frustrated with other social issues as well. These protests were actually a broader call for social justice due to other issues such as corruption and the lack of trust of Nigerians of politicians.

And if one looks at history, one can also see a culture of violence and corruption in most of Africa, including Nigeria. British colonizers came to Nigeria in the 19th century and for decades focused only on plundering the country, leaving behind a culture of violence and corruption (CHOW). Military coups continued to be the norm even after Nigeria gained independence in 1960. When reports of SARS committing atrocities on the Nigerian youth started coming out, the country was ruled by General Sani Abacha who himself was accused of abuses by global human rights organizations as he crushed protests and opposition activists.

So, one can see a culture of violence in Nigeria, and even now, those in power have no qualms about using it to suppress free voices. This calls for a social change within the country, where there is less corruption, politicians understand what the people want, and there is no need to resort to violence. An anti-robbery force, similar to SARS, was setup back in 1984 which operated in plain clothes and plain vehicles people could not associate it with the government because of its facelessness, and that was the reason for its success (CHOW).

The fact that the protests continued for so long, and that the protestors were also violently handled, indicates the government’s insensitivity and disregard for what the people want. A popular chant that one could hear during the #EndSars protests was “soro soke,” which in Nigerian language means “speak up” (Busari). If Nigeria want to progress as a nation, it should encourage its youth to speak up, and more importantly, it should build a social structure that is built on fairness and justice. Now with the SARS disbanded, I hope the youth in Nigeria realises that they are now a force to reckon with and should continue to raise their voices against other important social issues.

References

ANDREW CHOW. “The Nigerian Government Has Pledged to #EndSARS and Reform the Police. This Isn’t the First Time They’ve Made That Promise”. 28 Oct 2020, https://time.com/5904345/endsars-history-nigeria

BBC. “End Sars protests: People ‘shot dead’ in Lagos, Nigeria”. 21 Oct 2020, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-54629449

BBC. “End Sars protests: Growing list of celebrities pledge support for demonstrators”. 21 Oct 2020, https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-54629449

Presidency Nigeria, PRESIDENTIAL DIRECTIVE. 11 Oct 2020, https://twitter.com/NGRPresident/status/1315273093221318656

Statista. “African countries with the largest population as of 2020”. 4 Sep 2020, https://www.statista.com/statistics/1121246/population-in-africa-by-country

Stephanie Busari. “Nigeria’s Youth Finds Its Voice With The Endsars Protest Movement”. 25 Oct 2020, https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/25/africa/nigeria-end-sars-protests-analysis-intl/index.html.

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