Nigeria ablaze by #Endsars protest: What is Sars, why the protest?
SARS literally translates as SPECIAL ANTI ROBBERY SQUAD, a unit from the Nigerian police force that specializes in armed robbery and special robbery cases, supposed to be the replica of the American SWAT team
Why are Nigerians clamoring for the End of sars?
SARS started drifting apart from the main aim of the unit. They started vandalizing the citizen’s human rights, harrasing people, extorting from the youths and killing them at their own will with no empathy.
A Nigerian youth to some extent will prefer running into a den of thieves than running into a group of SARS operatives, because the sars operatives will extort and kill a citizen for dressing nice, wearing good and trendy clothes, dreadlocks and using of iPhones.
Bloggers, writers, freelancers, graphic designers and people who work online have their phones seized and searched through, at the expense of their own consent. Working online in Nigeria is now a crime, they stop you at police check points, place allegations of cyber crime on you and shoot you before you even explain yourself.
You will hear sentences like
“you look like a yahoo boy”
“you are using iPhone, therefore you are a yahoo boy”
“who owns this car, how can you afford a car at this age, you are a yahoo boy”
This unit is made up of exconvicts, people that cannot recite the police code of conduct. Ex criminals. All they want to do is to extort, torture and kill if you resist. A SARS personnel will kill a citizen because he is feeling sad. He just feels like.
The SARS stations have become abattooirs, people arrested since last ten years, the families are still looking for them. Deopists of human bodies are being seen often in nearby rivers-extra judicial killing is a new motto in this unit.
The youths of Nigeria has taken to street to protest against this police brutality, this willfull killings, they are protesting for change, for reformation.
I know you will think that reforming should be what Nigerians should be protesting for instead of scrapping out. Yes SARS is a needed unit and has also done good works.
The Nigerian government through the inspector General of police has being selling the joke of SARS reformation to Nigerians since 2016. 2016 they reformed, 2017 they reformed, the same as 2018, 2019 and the same joke in 2020. The Inspector General of police came out live to say they have dissolved SARS and in few hours presented a new unit called SWAT but the Nigerian youths do not want rebranding. Hence the hash tag #EndSwat. Once between twice shy, SARS was onece rebranded to FSARS and nothing changed, the same people, the same mindset. The Nigerian youths are tired.
The #Endsars protest was supposed to be a peaceful protest, an exhibition of democratic right but the police, especially the sars operatives, the operatives said to be dissolved. Have been shooting and arresting citizens for protesting.
The #Endsars protest is not just for ending sars but a big call for police reformation. Because the police are not being paid well, their barracks are worse, and the start of a better police force would start from the increment of their maintenance. The police trust fund is non existent in Nigeria. The Nigerian house senate are earning far better than the senators of the United Kingdom, the United States and so many other European cum American countries if not all.
That’s why the #Endsars hash tag that has been trending has recently being accompanied with #EndPoliceBrutality #EndBadGovernanceinNIGERIA #NASSpaycut because the Nigerian youths want a total change in the way the government is being handled.
They have demonstrated this, some of the protesters have taken foods and drinks to the police during the protest. So that the other police units can understand that the youths are also fighting for them.
Like Joy isi bewaji said
If you give a gun to a hungry man, he will look for food with the gun given to him.
The Nigerian youth want SARS scrapped, the personnels who killed innocent people apprehended and prosecuted, a police reformation and a new police training evaluation.