For the Nigerian youth, long may we reign

Growing up, my mum hawked plastic sachets of water on the streets of Benin city in order to pay for her secondary school tuition. Today, she is a sitting judge on the African Court of Human Rights. Even now as an adult, this feat amazes me, because for my generation of Nigerians that level of social mobility is near impossible. In 2020, there is little to no hope in a bright future for a child born into the same socio-economic circumstances that my mum was. Yet, young Nigerians, who have been the victims of Nigeria’s systemic and institutional failure their whole lives, are stereotyped as criminal, lazy and apathetic. 

According to the 2020 National Bureau of Statistics, 40.8 percent of young people in Nigeria aged 15-24 and 30.8 percent of those aged 25-34 are out of work. For perspective, as Chatham house put it, “if Nigeria’s unemployed youth were its own country, it would be larger than Tunisia or Belgium.” Young Nigerians often joke amongst ourselves that the ‘Nigerian dream’ is to relocate and love Nigeria from afar. However, underneath the humour is the painful reality that many of us have had to leave everything we've ever known and loved, just to be able to thrive in the ways we desire and deserve. Worse still is the fact that there are millions of Nigerians for whom leaving will never be an option. For others, journeying through the Sahara Desert and braving the possibility of enslavement, sex trafficking and death just to cross the Mediterranean Sea in the hopes of having a better life in Europe is the only option. When you compound this with police violence, extortion, intimidation and harassment, it offers more context as to why the #ENDSars movement has meant so much to the Nigerian youth and what has sustained it. 

“What started out as a protest of a few thousand people in front of the Lagos State Government house on the 8th of October exploded into an unprecedented decentralised social movement and series of mass demonstrations against police brutality across the nation and the world.”

The Special Anti-Robbery Squad, popularly known as SARS, was founded in 1992 and has terrorised young Nigerians since. A damning report by Amnesty International recorded 82 cases of SARS violations over the past three years including beatings, hangings, mock executions, sexual assault and waterboarding. It is routine for SARS officers to profile young people and fabricate charges against them on the spot in a bid to extort them. In October 2019, Yele Bademosi, a young tech entrepreneur based in Lagos, was kidnapped by SARS after a long day at work, only two minutes away from his home. The SARS officers involved seized his phones, house keys, wallet and Apple watch. They went through his emails and claimed that he was a ‘yahoo boy’ (internet fraudster) because he was in communication with foreigners. He was repeatedly threatened with violence, and then driven to an ATM and asked to withdraw all the money in both his Naira and Dollar accounts. As wild as all this may sound, this is not an uncommon occurrence. Yele was lucky to live to tell the tale, but many others have not been. 

“Young Nigerians, who have been the victims of Nigeria’s systemic and institutional failure their whole lives, are stereotyped as criminal, lazy and apathetic”

Ironically, all the dysfunction we were bred in has only equipped young Nigerians for this moment and to be the best fighters this country has ever seen. Already dealing with a global health pandemic, nationwide university strikes and devastating economic conditions, yet another viral video showing a SARS officer shooting a young man in front of Wetland Hotel, Ughelli, Delta state was the straw that broke the camel’s back and in the days that followed, thousands of young Nigerians took to the streets and social media demanding an end to police brutality and the dissolution of SARS for good.

What started out as a protest of a few thousand people in front of the Lagos State Government house on the 8th of October exploded into an unprecedented decentralised social movement and series of mass demonstrations against police brutality across the nation and the world. At the helm of the organising was a group of young Nigerian feminists called the Feminist coalition who were able to raise 147 million naira ($400,000) in two weeks despite repeated attempts by the Nigerian government and Central Bank to block access to donations and freeze their accounts. With just 0.0012% of the Nigerian 2020 National budget ($35 billion total), Feminist Coalition sponsored over 150 protests in 25 of the 36 Nigerian states and established a nationwide legal aid network of over 700 volunteer lawyers offering legal representation to arrested protesters. They covered medical bills of injured protesters, provided private security for those on the ground, distributed first aid, food and water at the protests, assisted the families of the deceased with funeral expenses, established a radio station and an emergency helpline, and provided free therapy and mental health support to Nigerians on the frontlines of the protests. 

“In response to protests about police brutality and violence against young people, the government unleashed even more violence.”

Social media also played a critical role in launching this movement and helping young Nigerians effectively organize using real-time data. To this end, there were coordinated efforts to crowdfund in order to sustain online protests and keep the #endSARS hashtag trending. The fervor and momentum of these online protests led to an endorsement of the movement from twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey, which included an updated hashtag with our own emoji, and 150 million tweets using the hashtag in the space of 3 weeks, according to social media analytics firm, Afriques Connectées. Locally, millennial, digital media publications like Zikoko, The Republic, NativeMag and Hip TV did the necessary work of amplifying the voices of young people in the streets to combat misinformation and propaganda by local mainstream media houses owned and operated by the Nigerian Government. 

In response to protests about police brutality and violence against young people, the government unleashed even more violence. All over the nation, protesters were repeatedly brutalised and arrested by the police for simply exercising their constitutional right to peacefully protest. In Abuja, the nation’s capital, protesters were routinely shot at with live ammunition, tear gas and water canons. Journalists covering the protests were beaten up by the police and had their film equipment either confiscated or destroyed. According to a press release by Amnesty International, there were at least 10 civilian deaths within the first week of protests. Nonetheless, young Nigerians continued to peacefully assemble and protest. 

On Tuesday, October 20th 2020, the Nigerian Army and Police Force barricaded protesters who had been sitting, holding hands, and singing the Nigerian national anthem at the Lekki toll gate in Lagos, and opened fire into the crowd. That  same day, similar state-sanctioned murders occurred in Lagos’ Mushin and Alausa areas with Amnesty International reporting at least 12 dead. On Wednesday, October 21st, 2020, the Nigerian Army denied ever being at the Lekki toll gate, describing the massacre as ‘fake news’, despite an overwhelming amount of footage showing the contrary. Additionally, President Muhammadu Buhari GCFR, in his address to the Nation on the 23rd of October, refused to acknowledge that any civilian Nigerian lives were lost. Nonetheless, young Nigerians continued to make ‘good noise’ on social media, fighting against the gaslighting and lies of our Federal and State governments with the aim of getting the attention of international media, and our efforts were not in vain. On the 27th of October, in an interview with Becky Anderson on CNN, the Lagos state governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, finally admitted that the Nigerian army was present at the Lekki toll gate and committed to a full investigation of the events of October 20th, 2020. 

This movement is unlike anything young Nigerians have ever witnessed or experienced. We are seeing a glimpse of what the future could be, with leadership characterized by service, radical transparency, efficiency, and empathy. Since the massacre, we have seen both online and offline debates on “civil disobedience”, and ideas of respectability politics when all young people have asked is to not be killed, harassed, and extorted. Regardless, the democratic infrastructure for citizen’s activism has been established, and has galvanised the kind of hope that will not die. Witnessing the absolute resolve young Nigerians have shown since the 8th of October 2020, I have no doubt that we are capable of creating a Nigeria where regardless of your socio-economic background, just like my mum, anyone can thrive. The Nigerian Youth are here, we are not going anywhere, and we will continue to make good noise!