Why are tens of thousands of Nigerians protesting?
Tens of thousands of Nigerians have been taking to the streets for more than two weeks to protest against police brutality.
The hashtag #EndSARS has been trending not just in Nigeria but across the world for several days [Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP]
The hashtag #EndSARS has been trending not just in Nigeria but across the world for several days [Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP]
21 Oct 2020
Tens of thousands of Nigerians have been taking to the streets for more than two weeks to protest against police brutality.
Young people mobilising through social media began staging demonstrations calling for the abolition of the federal Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), which has long been accused of unlawful arrests, torture and extrajudicial killings.
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The Nigerian protests are about much more than police violence
The hashtag #EndSARS has been trending not just in Nigeria but across the world for several days.
What is SARS?
SARS was a special police unit set up in 1984 as Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country, battled rising levels of crime and kidnappings.
Initially, it was successful in reducing cases of violent crime but more recently the unit had been “turned into banditry”, according to Fulani Kwajafa, the man who set up SARS.
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In June 2020, Amnesty International released a report that documented at least 82 cases of torture, ill-treatment and extrajudicial execution by SARS between January 2017 and May 2020.
What triggered the protests?
The protests were sparked by a viral video allegedly showing SARS officers killing a young man in the southern Delta state. Authorities denied the video was real.
The man who filmed the video was arrested, provoking even more anger.