#ENDSARS: Nigeria Must Demand Accountability, Justice

 By Osai Ojigho and Chuka Arinze-Onyia

It has been two years since young Nigerians protesting police brutality and corruption by the infamous Special Anti-Robbery Squad were violently attacked and killed by the police and military across the country, and yet there has been no accountability. This is despite the fact that there is ample and documented evidence of the gruesome brutality perpetrated on peaceful protesters by members of the security forces across the country. 

The brutal attack of protesters by the Nigerian authorities is part of a current trend of governments across the world attacking protesters in their bid to silence dissenting voices. Protesters in Cameroon, Senegal, and most recently, Iran, have been met with all sorts of violence and excessive force, and many have been killed as a direct result of the violence deployed by state actors.

Nigeria: The Massacre At The Lekki Toll Gate

 By Femi Falana

For several years, the human rights community had called for the prosecution of the operatives of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) over incessant arrests, detention, torture and extrajudicial killing of citizens. As such calls were ignored by the authorities the SARS intensified the brutalization of citizens particularly young people. The video of the reckless killing of an unarmed young man in Delta State sometime in the first week of October 2020 by trigger happy SARS officials went viral and led to  spontaneous street protests in many states of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory. In its initial reaction to the protests the Federal Government announced that SARS would undergo some reforms.

Since the Government had ignored the reports of many administrative panels that  made a strong case for police reforms in the recent past  the youths distrusted the authorities  They continued the  peaceful protests and demanded for the immediate disbandment of the SARS.

Ending The SARS Mentality In Nigeria

By Ayo Baje

You bowing, you crying 

You, dying like that one day without knowing why 

You, struggling, you watching over another’s rest 

You, looking no longer with laughter in your eyes 

You my brother, your face full of fear and suffering 

Stand up, and shout No!”  

– David Diop  

The recent protests against gross human rights violations, through the use of brutal force and extra-judicial killings of defenceless citizens by operatives of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) across many states of the country underscores the anomaly of a political leadership that deploys force and fiat under a democratic dispensation.

Nigeria: Police March Of Murders

By Paul Onomuakpokpo

Whenever trigger-happy cops kill an innocent citizen, they have only given expression to the adversarial relationship they have cultivated with the rest of the citizens. They have not done anything different from what others who occupy positions of authority do. Those who preside over the affairs of our nation see society as bifurcated between themselves and the rest of the citizens who should be subjected to ill treatment at their hands. 

To them, government does not exist for the people but for a handful of leaders and a coterie of their loyalists. Or why do our leaders not feel the pain of the citizens? How would our leaders feel the pain of driving on a pothole-ridden road when they fly above it? Would they feel the pain of being treated in a slaughterhouse that is outlandishly christened a general or teaching hospital when they fly abroad for medical treatment at the expense of the taxpayers?