It is a general knowledge that a country that continues 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 utilise 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 October 20, 2023, 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 Nigeria Police. It became a tool for mobilisation across major cities locally 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, over 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 stage 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 seem 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 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 show that the government needs to do more on police reform. Unfortunately, those entrusted to engineer the reform seem not to see this as a threat to the country’s survival with their continuous lip service to things that require urgent and adequate attention.
This can be deduced from the purchase of latest jeeps for members of the National Assembly at a time the government continues to complain about lack of funds for the running of system, health, among others.
Recently, students at tertiary institutions, especially federal universities, were seen in the streets protesting the hike in tuition fees. The same is the case of the federal government colleges with the lamentations of most parents on the unprecedented increase in tuition fees.
This is complicated by the hydra-headed poverty that continues to stoke insecurity and force many children to drop-out-of-school.
To add salt to injury, electricity 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 companies to relocate to other countries within and outside Africa. This has greatly contributed to the growing unemployment and underemployment syndrome that has eaten deep the fabric of joy in Nigeria
The disposition of government to this suggests that government has not really learnt lessons from the EndSARS protest. It is on record that over 25 police officers were killed while about 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, over N1trillion worth of properties were destroyed. The money used to repair and replace these properties would have been used for other projects if the destruction never took place.
Majority of those that lost their loved ones in the display are yet to fully recover from the bitterness it brought to their families despite the formation of inquiry panels and the purported compensation given to them.
In fact, there are reports that some of the slain protesters are yet to be buried till date. In July, a coalition of EndSARS protesters and supporters accused the Lagos state government of planning the mass burial of 103 slain protesters without making public announcement for their loved ones to claim them.
This might not be too far from the reality with report that over 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 elections seem not 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 the release of those arrested during the EndSARS protest, give proper public publication on the mass burial of those who died 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.
Oluwasanmi writes from Atakunmosa, Osun state
