A call to #ENDSARS: This article is about injustice

October 15, 2020 Tobi Nifesi

Image by Amnesty International

Today—on the second anniversary of my father’s death—I’m reminded of the conversations I had with him and the lessons he taught me.

My father had a relentless passion for people. Regardless of the reputation that preceded people, he always believed in the best parts of them and stood up for them.

I saw my father open our house to strangers time and time again. I watched him preach the gospel of Jesus to armed robbers even as they were pointing a gun at him. I was there when he invested chunks of our household income into the education and future of young people around us. I have received several favours in my life because my father favoured people.

He taught me to believe in and stand up for people.

Today, my Nigerian people are in great distress. My brothers and sisters are being imprisoned, tortured, molested, and killed by our own government. This ordeal didn’t start today but today, and for the rest of our lives, we have decided that we have had enough—and we will no longer stay quiet about it.

In 1992, the Nigerian government created the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) as a police unit to deal with incidences of robbery, theft and kidnapping in the country. Initially, this police unit operated covertly to investigate and prosecute criminals but with time, the unit became riddled with unlawful acts such as bribery, extortion, blackmail, torture and extrajudicial executions.

Simply put: the police officers who were hired and trained to stop crime in Nigeria became the perpetrators of deadly crimes against innocent Nigerians; especially the youth. This has been the case for almost three decades.

In the past three years, Nigerian youths have made attempts to protest and campaign against this police unit. They have called on the Nigerian government to save lives by disbanding SARS. These calls have either fallen on deaf ears or led to false attempts by the government to reform the unit. Despite these calls, hundreds of innocent Nigerian citizens have been tortured or killed since 2017 and at least ten of them died in the past week.

So, once again, Nigerian youths are protesting. We are protesting because we realize that this may be our only chance at actually saving our lives, safeguarding our future, reenvisioning the Nigerian police force and forcing our incompetent leaders to take action.

This is not just a Nigerian protest by Nigerian youths against the Nigerian government. This is a global protest by the world against the Nigerian government.

I know most of the people who will read this article may neither be Nigerian citizens nor residents. So, there is a chance that you may not care about what you just read. Yet, if you have ever been marginalized in any way—because of your age, race, size, complexion, social status, education or lack thereof—you have an idea of what injustice looks like. This article is about injustice.

I implore you to continue standing up, in your own way, for people who are being oppressed and treated unfairly.