Pamela T Munyoro
(News of The South) – Thousands of Nigerians have been taking to the streets for more than two weeks to protest against police brutality.
Protesters have erupted against police violence and evolved into broader anti-government demonstrations, leading to a deadly crackdown.
Young people began mobilizing through social media, staging demonstrations calling for the abolition of the federal Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), which has long been accused of unlawful arrests, torture and extrajudicial killings.
SARS was a special police unit set up decades ago in Nigeria, as a special police unit to battle rising levels of crime and kidnappings. It was successful in reducing cases of violent crime but more recently the unit had been turned into banditry according to Fulani Kwajafa, the man who set up SARS.
In June 2020, Amnesty International released a report that documented at least 82 cases of torture, ill-treatment and extrajudicial execution by SARS between January 2017 and May 2020.
Nigerians want the SARS to be dissolved, after a video went viral of them killing a young man in the southern Delta state. The man who filmed the video was arrested.
Lagos and several other cities are under a 24 hour curfew, imposed on Tuesday evening, 15 to 35 people have died in violence linked to the demonstrations over recent days.
Protesters are seen holding signs saying, “We have no leaders, stop killing leaders of tomorrow.” Youths are angry seeing how the security force is responding.
Most of them are angry with the way the police is killing dozens of people, who wants change, to end corruption and violence.
The hashtag #EndSARS has been trending not just in Nigeria but across the world.
Despite the violent response by the police who are firing teargases back to the crowd, the protest movement will not go away, demonstrators and analysts said.
Youths of ENDSARS protesters display their placards in a crowd in support of the ongoing protest against the harassment, killings and brutality of The Nigerian Police Force Unit called Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) at Allen Roundabout in Ikeja, on October 13, 2020. (Photo by Olukayode Jaiyeola/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
A protester holds up a scarf with the same colours as the Nigerian national flag during a live concert at the Lekki toll gate in Lagos, on October 15, 2020, during a demonstration to protest against police brutality and scrapping of Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS). (Photo by Pierre FAVENNEC / AFP) (Photo by PIERRE FAVENNEC/AFP via Getty Images)
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