In the October 2020 #EndSARS protests, Nigerian youths came onto the streets calling for disbanding of the abusive, undisciplined, extortionist Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS). Government responded with excessive force, resulting in serious injuries and deaths.
As usual, the truth concerning the exact number of casualties will never be known because government’s spokespersons displayed their aversion to the truth and denied details of the atrocities committed. Unfortunately for them cellphone video coverage, interviews of victims and medical service providers who treated gunshot wounds, testimonies from mortuaries which received corpses made it easy to separate the truth from the official fictitious version of events.
It’s no surprise that government has refused to arrest and prosecute anybody for the Lekki Toll Gate killings. Their poor handling of the #EndSARS protests and its aftermath revealed an unpreparedness for democratic governance let alone the promised change. Although they claim to accept that citizens have constitutional rights to peaceful assembly and protest, since 2015 government has done everything possible to frustrate the exercise of such rights. They pretend to acknowledge the right to peaceful protest, yet plan for protestors to be “controlled” by ill-disciplined gun-toting policemen and soldiers. It doesn’t take a genius to predict that unarmed citizens would end up being wounded, maimed and even killed in the heat of the moment.
In bye-gone days when government was more civil, opposition candidate Muhammadu Buhari protested on the streets and nobody shot at him, tear-gassed him, or even arrested him. Having assumed office his aversion to protests is legendary and contradictory. Every democratically elected government has a duty to provide for peaceful protests.
The Nigeria Police Force is supposed to have anti-riot/crowd control capabilities in which officers are equipped with shields, helmets, batons, stun-guns, rubber bullets, teargas, and water-hoses. Regrettably they have no such capability.
The vicious clampdown on protestors can be explained partly by President Buhari referring to #EndSARS protestors as youths who wanted to remove him from office. Indeed a few misguided self-appointed “youth leaders” decided to mix their personal dissatisfaction with his administration, with the universal disdain for police behaviour. There is every reason for youths to remember their slaughtered colleagues, however, they must understand that in a democracy, change is effected through political processes, not by causing disruption on the streets. Regrettably the truth is that Nigerian youths are being placed in a situation where they have no other choice but to cause disruption on the streets because they cannot seek legal redress, and their elected representatives are pre-occupied representing themselves and looting the treasury.
Courts are powerless to instill discipline in security agents because charges can only be brought against errant security personnel after internal disciplinary processes lead to their discharge. This means that rank and file security personnel are free to commit human rights abuses as long as they are covered up by their superiors.
Although SARS has been disbanded and that battle was won, this hasn’t stopped prejudice against youths and their harassment by security forces with the tacit support of the highest authorities. There is a need for leadership of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF), Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) to tackle the problem of a culture of impunity and systemic abuse of power by their gun-toting rank and file.
Social scientists agree that there are good reasons why youths have basically given up on Nigeria and its system of government. They prefer to spend their spare time watching “Big Brother Nigeria” (BBN) on TV rather than discussing politics or how to improve society. They have far more confidence in the result of Big Brother “elections” where they vote using their cellphones, than they have in the result of any election conducted by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). This is despite the billions routinely squandered on ballot papers, PVC’s, Card Readers, vehicles, logistics and mountains of paper work.
INEC has lost the trust of the youths who don’t bother to vote because whereas in BBN their votes actually count, this isn’t the case in INEC organised elections which are routinely overturned by the courts.
This administration is so intolerant of youths expressing their views and demanding their constitutional rights they have condemnably said that “national security” (a euphemism for the personal interests of those in power) overrides the constitutionally guaranteed rights of youths. If it wasn’t a tragedy, it would be comical that a national leadership, which safely ensconces their children overseas or in unearned privileged positions in government agencies, feigns surprise that the main ambition of Nigerian youths is to get as far away from here as possible. They have every right to live a decent life, in a decent society, in a decently run country where government lives up to its responsibilities.
In a scathing editorial on Nigeria entitled “The Crime Scene at the Heart of Africa” published on Oct 23rd 2021 the Economist magazine described the government of President Buhari as inept and high-handed, and asserted that Nigeria’s increasing instability is caused by a “sick economy and bumbling government”. They said that despite the great potential of the country, youths were leaving in droves because of the sorry state of the nation and no prospects for a better future.
The truth is that all the booming businesses in Nigeria, which are or concerned with treasury looting, are run by youths. The only place their presence is not felt is in politics and the consequences are clearly visible in the failure of government to live up to its responsibilities. Nigerian Youths claim that when campaigning for their votes the All Progressives Congress (APC) promised to include youths in their administration. They should hold their peace on that matter because there are many more pressing campaign promises that the APC made which they never fulfilled! The #EndSARS protests may just be the beginning of their acceptance that the future doesn’t belong to those who owned the past.
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