News — #EndSars

A huge debate on the regulation of social media has come up recently, following recent chaos that came after the #ENDSARS protest. Once more, people are arguing whether social media spaces should remain avenues of free expression or whether it’s time for the government to step into this space. However, many have overlooked the more important question of why we need social media even in political turmoil.

For a movement which pulled as much weight as that of #ENDSARS, mainstream media was mostly ineffective in following it leading to social media being at the forefront of covering the movement. This raises the question of how important social media and freedom of expression have become to individual liberty. 

From a hashtag on Twitter, the movement grew with young people around the country sharing their stories of police brutality which led to the realization of the enormity of the problem and then to a call to action. While mainstream media was slowly catching up to the magnitude of this movement, social media users made it trend and also ensured it attracted an audience both locally and internationally, drawing attention to the plight of young Nigerians. 

The human rights abuses against protesters were mostly documented by private individuals and shared on social media. Many of these events were not covered by mainstream media. The live video of the Lekki Massacre which was watched by over 150,000 people serves as infallible proof of the event which has otherwise been consistently denied. Despite the fact that the chaos that ensued cannot be directly blamed on social media interactions, social media has become the scapegoat in Nigerians’ quest for a return to sanity and safety. 

This important help social media provided comes barely a year after the uproar surrounding the social media bill and reaffirms why the bill had to be resisted and why any attempt to bring it up again must be vociferously challenged. The question of whether the movement would have gathered as much traction as it did or whether the human rights violations committed during this period would have been covered up if social media was being regulated by the government now has a clear answer.  

The government’s obvious attempts at covering up these events—the denials, terming it fake news, the persecution of protesters—freezing of their bank accounts, terming them threats to the nation and the fact that many of the key figures in the protests have had to flee the country for their lives is proof that we can’t trust this same government with control over what we can and cannot share on social media.

One may be tempted to acquiesce to some sort of regulation to prevent fake news or hate speech especially in these volatile times, however, a clampdown on free speech doesn’t always end at the extremities regulators claim they’re trying to prevent. A good example is the cancel culture that’s slowly growing around the world and on social media. At first, it started with hate and violent speech but has moved on to target conspiracy theories and speech deemed politically and socially incorrect or offensive.

The media has always been at the forefront of the struggle for liberty in whatever form it has taken over the years. There is no doubt that social media is a new and powerful tool for advocating freedom and if we are to diligently guard our liberty, we must also diligently guard freedom of expression and in particular, our freedom to use social media even for those whose words we dislike. We mustn’t forget so soon after, the role social media has played in exposing the failures of the government.

Even though things might be scary in these times, Nigerians should be careful of making the very common mistake of trading safety for freedom. While the government taking charge might give a facade of calm and sanity, greater dangers to liberty and even safety can arise from there.

Nigeria’s tech community has come out in full support of the protests rocking Africa’s most populous country this week, after years of battling the same police unit accused of harassment, beatings and murder.

When Toni Astro, a Lagos-based software engineer, posted on Twitter a harrowing account of his encounter with the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) in 2019 – influential tech leaders launched the #StopRobbingUS campaign to denounce police brutality and impunity in Nigeria.

The feared police unit, which has now been disbanded following nationwide protests, had been accused of frequently harassing young techies in Nigeria’s commercial capital of Lagos, accusing young developers of being laptop thieves.

The movement was led by Bosun Tijani of the incubator CcHUB, Jason Njoku of streaming service Iroko, Iyin “E” Aboyeji of tech-collective Future.Africa and Oluyomi Ojo of design-startup Printivo, among others.

One year on, and the tech community is again backing the most recent protests as they spread throughout the world from Canada to the UK.

Paystack, a payment service provider that was recently acquired for over $200m, donated around $2500 to a civil society group called the feminist coalition which has been at the forefront of providing relief and support to the protestors. 

Another payments company Flutterwave has raised around $5000 to help get treatment for SARS victims. 

“Many of us are affected by this injustice – @theflutterwave staff have also been victims of the brutality of SARS, so we started an internal fund so we can help victims of SARS and support protesters. #EndSARS,” wrote CEO Olubenga Agboola on Twitter. 

The recent boon for Nigeria’s tech sector following Paystack’s acquisition may be short lived. 

Most businesses have closed shop after the Nigerian army opened fire on peaceful protestors in Lagos witnesses said, sparking further unrest. 

The uncertain situation and ongoing violence will also damage investor confidence in Nigeria’s tech scene, says Segun Awosanya, a tech-figure at the forefront of the #StopRobbingUs campaign said.

He said: “Nobody is going to invest in a country where there is no police or law and order. Right now people are hoarding money in their homes. People cannot go to banks because the banks are not open, there is no law and order.

Awosanya predicts the unrest will continue for several weeks and expects a state of emergency to follow the 24-hour curfew imposed on Tuesday.

Nigeria’s president Muhammadu Buhari addressed the nation on Wednesday warning citizens to desist from protests, but critics argue his speech did little to address the rapidly escalating situation.

The Nigerian Police Force has a long history of brutality and harassment which the government has fought to end by adopting many different reforms, to no end. This is majorly due to the cloak of invincibility, born out of their total lack of accountability, which shrouds the force.

Although the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) has been dissolved, police brutality and harassment will continue until the police force is held accountable for its actions by a body that is completely independent of it. A wake-up call for the Nigerian Police as well as the Nigerian government.

During the heavy days of massive protests against police brutality across the country, the Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, announced the establishment of the Special Weapon and Tactics (SWAT) to replace it’s greatly detested unit, SARS, notorious for brutality, harassment, and extortion. 

The SARS, formed in 1992, was a solution to curb the excesses of the force after a Nigerian Army officer, Col. Rindam, was killed by police officers at a checkpoint in Lagos. Unfortunately, the seeming solution has now become the problem—even worse—despite several acclaimed reforms. What is the guarantee that SWAT won’t be the demon we will be fighting tomorrow?

In its report about Nigeria’s coronavirus lockdown period, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) said it had found 11 separate incidents of extrajudicial killings, seven of which came from the Nigerian Police Force.

The recommendations from the 2018 NHRC panel for the reform of the SARS and other such reforms attempted by the government in recent times yielded no improvements on the activities of the SARS and the entire police force in general. This is largely due to the power wielded by the police force which stems from their historical lack of accountability. In order to implement a reform that would be effective, there is a need to cut down on and reduce their power by increasing their accountability.

What to do

First, enough of the docile Police Service Commission; she has to wake up to its mission “to improve service delivery in the Nigeria Police Force by promoting transparency and accountability in the police”. It needs to be more accessible to the public and it should work hand in hand with the local communities. It should also be less populated by members of the police force, retired or not to ensure objectivity and transparency.

Police officers need to know that there is a body that has just as much power over them as they have over the citizens. Offenses committed by the police should not be investigated by the police. Citizens need to be assured that the police cannot get away with their offenses against them and violations of their rights.

Also, the Nigerian government needs to regulate the use of firearms in the police force. Members of the Nigerian Police Force go around with assault and semi-assault rifles for tasks as mundane as patrol. This, again, gives them an air of invincibility. Not only are these firearms unaccounted for, but police officers also walk free in obvious cases of misuse and abuse. Regulation should not only come in the form of laws, some officers should not even be allowed to carry firearms at all.

In February 2018, the Inspector General of police gave the order for the recovery of illegal firearms, ammunition and weapons from bandits, militia and vigilante groups in their committed efforts to protect the lives and properties of the people. Efforts like this will, however, be useless for as long as men of the Nigerian Police wield firearms, unregulated.

A police recruit earns less than a hundred and ten thousand Naira in a year. There should also be a better remuneration package for police officers. This would ensure that they perform their duties with no grudge or ill will towards the state or its citizens. This would also go a long way to ensure that they perform their duties with utmost dedication.

For whatever reason, the fear has never been quite overcome by the Nigerian people even after President Muhammadu Buhari, a former military leader of that country, referred to himself as a “converted democrat”.

After he was kicked out of power in 1985 in the same way he had militantly grabbed it, Buhari tried under the new democratic dispensation to become Nigeria’s president. He was fourth time lucky in 2015, thanks to the support from the hugely revered Olusegun Obasanjo and top-dollar advice from a former senior adviser to Barack Obama, David Axelrod.

On assuming power, Buhari was mindful of what he had to prove and the background against which he would be measured – the steps were careful and the tone, ear-friendly. There were the Boko Haram menace and an economy that required impetus but the president understood that his democratic credentials were under perpetual forensic audit by the over 190 million in Nigeria and observers from afar.

But the complexity of the multitudes in a democratic society revealed his shallow temperance in good time. This year, the vibrant #EndSARS movement of young protesters who sought to disband the notorious unit of the Nigerian police service came knocking for positive change and the door held by no hinges, caved in.

The Special Anti-Robbery Squad had terrorized Nigerians for decades, and the widely-held feeling was that the unit was not fit for purpose. As the days rolled on, the concerns of the protesters did not necessarily evolve but expanded. And that was the most annoying thing for Nigeria’s ruling elite – to be called out to do their jobs in that very global manner by young people.

But what happened with the movement was simultaneously the best opportunity Buhari was presented to cement his name in the pantheon of converted democrats. But Nigeria’s president allowed himself to be undone by the temptations of not aspiring to respectable immortality.

The source of Buhari’s first temptation goes back to 2019 after he sealed the deal for a second term. There are now no more elections for him to win and that means there is very little reason to go further and seek better. The nature of Nigeria’s politics means that Buhari is not necessarily hurting the chances of whoever in the All Progressives Congress (APC) is considered heir apparent to the president.

Alfred Akawe Torkula in The Culture of Partisan Politics in Nigeria: An Historical Perspective illustrates how Nigerian politics is not particularly ideological as it is populist, and not strongly partisan as it is about ethnic identities. Buhari himself was the presidential candidate of three different parties in four different elections.

The second temptation was the president treating the cries of concerned citizens like noises of petulant children. Falling to this temptation was as African as they come, with the nearly 78-year-old adult dismissing the dismissable children who should be seen and not heard. Throughout the time the protesters were on the street of Nigeria’s major cities, Buhari only spoke twice to their problems, and he did not hide his condescension on either occasion.

In the first speech that came days after the protests had begun, he reiterated the disbandment of SARS and virtually said there was no more reason for protesters to be on the street. SARS had previously undergone reformations and disbandment that left the unit neither reformed nor disbanded.

The second time Buhari spoke to Nigerians, he threatened that the federal government will not be dared by troublemakers “who have hijacked and misdirected the initial, genuine and well-intended protest”. When people with power frame language in this way, it leaves very little doubt that the state security apparatus takes it upon itself to choose whosoever fits a predetermined description of a troublemaker.

Effectively, this threat was not lost on the youngsters who had already seen some of their colleagues killed. The speech also came two days after protesters were killed by soldiers in Lekki, Lagos, an event Buhari failed to acknowledge as if that day had not even happened.

Buhari even reserved some of the sensational disrespect of his second speech for Ghana’s Nana Akufo-Addo who the Nigerian president diplomatically told to mind his business after the leader of Nigeria’s West African neighbors had, in his capacity as the head of the regional body ECOWAS and in neighborly spirit, spoken about the unrest in Nigeria.

The final temptation Buhari surrendered to was the rotting Nigerian democratic culture. The attitudes that preserve the sanctity of democracy seems lacking among Nigeria’s political class and the young people know this all too well. The young in Africa’s most populous nation know the systemic dream-shattering efficacy of the Nigerian experience.

This is the culture where political office holders who felt insulted by an electorate asking them to do better unleash numerous faceless henchmen to clash with protesters.

For a while, protesters were not even against the national security forces in the streets but against a collection of machete and club-wielding young men whom no one has been able to identify. And who can forget the mysterious jailbreaks in two states that were blamed on #EndSARS protesters?

In the beginning, it was even hard for politicians to sympathize with protesters and those who even did hoped they were allowed to turn this one into an anti-Buhari campaign. There were those who definitely saw the #EndSARS movement as an anti-Hausa and anti-northern Nigeria masses who had coalesced around an exaggerated police problem.

Now, the leadership that could not be reached but through the force applied by international pressure is thinking of regulating social media, the tool by which they were exposed.

What reared its head in the two weeks that the #EndSARS campaign was alive was the leader with authoritarian tendencies. The poor protesters could not get through to him and he would not even tell them to eat cake or Agege bread.

Certainly, the unwritten leader’s transcendental calling as one who should rise above the usual and lead the people into some semblance of sense is the ground upon which Buhari’s refusal to lead shocked many. He did not want to bring light to the darkness but took to the nightshade like the black panther.

In the last two weeks more than any time during his presidency, Buhari epitomized the fears that never went away. Every bit of his moral abstinence said clearly to the young who come tomorrow: Hope? That’s for losers!