Labour of EndSARS Protesters -By Femi Oluwasanmi

It is a general knowledge that a country that continue to host so many poor and jobless can hardly know peace. That is why most countries across the globe continue to work round the clock to create suitable environment for the youths to breathe and utilize their potential for wealth creation. Failure to adequately demonstrate this in Nigeria contributed to the eruption of EndSARS protest in 2020. However, this seems not to have yielded the desired results with the continuous detention of some of the protesters at various correctional facilities across the country.

While marking the 3rd anniversary of the protest on 20th October, 2023, the Amnesty International (AI) stated that 15 protesters arrested during the EndSARS protest are still being arbitrarily detained in Kirikiri and Ikoyi Medium Security Correctional Centres in Lagos without trial under the pretext of charges including theft, arson, possession of unlawful firearms, and murder.

The slogan, EndSARS, started in 2017 as a Twitter campaign to demand the disbanding of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), a unit of the Nigerian Police and became a tool for mobilisation across major cities both home and abroad during the protest in 2020.

Prior to the protest, there have been records of alleged profiling of young Nigerians by the officers of the unit based on fashion choices, tattoos and hairstyles. In fact, sometimes they mount illegal road blocks, conduct unwarranted checks and searches, arrest and detain without warrant or trial, extort people among others.

Between January 2017 and May 2020, more than 82 cases of abuses and extra judicial killings were documented to have been committed by the unit. This made Nigerian activists, youth and celebrities to staged a peaceful protest demanding its disbandment in 2017 and the “tsunami of protests” that fast tracked its end in 2020.

Because of the hardship in the country, the demands of the protesters were later extended to include demands for good and accountable governance. Three years after the protest, the issues seems to remain unabated because of the reports of pockets of Police brutality and other activities that suggest that the government is insensitive to the plight of the people.

In December 2022, a pregnant woman, Mrs Bolanle Raheem, was shot dead in an incident involving Drambi Vandi and other police officers at the Ajah, Lagos. Similarly, a 26 year old man, Onyeka Ibe, was shot dead at Asaba, Delta State by Inspector, Ubi Ebri for allegedly refusing to give a bribe of N100 in April.

Though, the officers involved have been dismissed but the agony and pains caused by their actions shows that the government needs to put more efforts in the quest for police reform. Unfortunately, those entrusted with the power to engineer this reform seems not to see this as a threat to the country’s survivability with their continuous lip service to things that require urgent and adequate attention.

This can be deduced from the purchase of latest jeeps for the members of the national assembly at a time when the government continue to complain about lack of funds for the running of education system, health sector among others.

Of recent, students at the tertiary institutions especially, the federal universities, were seen on the streets protesting the increment in the tuition by the school management. The same is the case of the federal government colleges with the lamentations of most parents on the unprecedented increase in the tuition of their children.

This is complicated by the hydra-headed poverty that continues to strengthening insecurity and forced many children to dropped out of school.

To add salt to the injury, the power supply that stands as the propeller of economic prosperity seems to be on a reverse gear with the epileptic power supply that has forced many giant companies to relocate to other countries within and outside the subregion of Africa. This has greatly contributed to the growing unemployment and underemployment syndromes that have eaten deep the fabric of joy in Nigeria

The deposition of the government towards this seems to suggest that the government has not really learn lessons from the outbreak of the EndSARS protest. It is on record that not less than 25 police officers were killed while closed to 300 police formations were destroyed by the hoodlums that infiltrated the protest. This is not talk of the numbers of property that were destroyed during the protest.

In Lagos State alone, more than a trillion naira worth of properties were destroyed. The money used to repaired and replaced these properties would have been used for other projects if the destruction never took place.

Majority of those that lose their loved ones in the display are yet to fully recover from the bitterness it brought to their family despite the formation of inquiry panels and the purported compensation reported to have be given to them.

In fact, there are reports that the bodies of some of the protesters that were killed during the protest are yet to be buried till date. In July, a coalition of EndSARS protesters and supporters accused the Lagos State government of planning to cary out mass burial of 103 people who died during the October 2020 demonstrations without making public announcement for their loved ones to claim them.

This might not be too far from the reality with report that more than 13 people arrested during the protest are still at different correctional facilities across the country without trial.

Unfortunately, most of the political figures that rode on the awareness created by the protest among the youths to boost their political wings at the 2023 general election seems not to be concerned about the continuous detention of the protesters with their total silence on the detention. This is really a departure from the reasons for the protest and disservice to the labour of those that paid the supreme price during the protest.

It is therefore urgently important for the nation to seek to the release of those that were arrested during the EndSARS protest, give proper public publication on the mass burial of those that loss their lives during the protest so that their loved ones can pay them their last respect, create a suitable environment for the youths to use their potential for wealth creation in order to prevent the reoccurrence of protest of such a magnitude in Nigeria.

Femi Oluwasanmi,
Atakunmosa,
Osun State.