Martins, a 24 year old software engineer, stood in front of the barricaded Lagos State House of Assembly complex to protest police brutality with other Nigerians.
It was on the third and last day of the 72-hour sit-in protest that had been going on at the government secretariat in Alausa Ikeja, a highbrow area of Lagos with significant presence of government offices.
Dressed in a slim-fit top and styling his hair in locks, his gait, as he walked around the protests complaining of several harassments he has had to endure in the hands of men of the Special Anti Robbery Squad (SARS) showed that he was agitated.
‘’I am scared of leaving my house… and with that I have resigned from a lot of jobs. I tell them that if I can’t work remotely, I can’t work with you,’’ he said.
For him, the combination of locked hair and a laptop is almost lethal because he fits into the SARS’ officers stereotypical profile of a cyber criminal. Several Nigerians have been extorted, harassed and murdered by the men of SARS under this guise. SARS is generally seen as a rogue unit of the Nigerian Police Force with the mandate to arrest, detain and prosecute people involved in armed robbery.
‘’I am scared of leaving my house every day. On the occasions I have to leave the house, I dress like a nerd… [so as not to fit into the profile of a cyber fraudster] yet that does not change anything,’’ he said.
Due to fear and constant harassment, Martins has had to resign from dream jobs or decline many offers for the fear of his life. Many of his colleagues have been kidnapped and brutalized by the men of SARS for carrying iPhones, or a laptop or for having piercings and tattoos.
‘’I tell companies that if I can’t work remotely, I can’t work for you. I risk my life every day I go to work.’’
Martins is one of the thousands of young Nigerians who have poured out to the streets across the country to speak against continued police brutality. This protest was just one of the many that are being organized in Lagos and the rest of the country.
No reform
The latest wave of protests was triggered by the gruesome murder of a young unnamed man in Ughelli, Delta state purportedly by the men of SARS. This video shocked Nigerians when it hit the internet and resurrected the #EndSARS hashtag which has been used over the years in protest against police brutality.
Along the hashtag, names of several victims who have been killed by SARS officers in various parts of the country are listed. Kolade Johnson, Ifeoma Abugu, Tiamiyu Kazeem, Daniel Abugu, Chijioke Ilonaya, Tina Ezekwe, Aneka Okorie, Christian Anams are only a few names among thousands that are captured as unfortunate statistics, without any form of justice.
For every time there is a public outcry, the government, in response, announces plans to reform the unit. This has happened four times in four years, yet nothing has changed with the reforms, the protesters said.
In 2018, the acting president, Yemi Osinbajo announced a reform of the SARS unit of the Nigerian Police Force. Since then, several cases of harassment, brutality, extortion, kidnapping and killings have surfaced online with videos and pictures captured covertly by bystanders.
On the 6th of October, the Nigeria Police Force via their official twitter account announced another reform, stopping SARS officers from routine street patrol.
David Sottin, 21, a photographer and graduate of mass communications, was broadcasting the protest on his instagram live feed to create more awareness. He held his phone in one hand and a placard in the other.
’It was after I resisted that one of their superiors asked them to let me off their van because I did not look like someone who has money. So I was pushed out of their van in the middle of the road.
On January 3 this year, at about 8 am, he was going back to his hostel from his home where he lives with his parents at Badagary, a suburb of Lagos close to the border of the Republic of Benin, when he was stopped by SARS officers.
‘’I asked for what I had done but they did not bother to respond. They forcefully grabbed my phone and started going through it, checking my mail, account balance and transactions,’’ he said.
‘’The next thing, they told me to enter their bus. They pushed me inside. I only had 4000 naira (approximately $10) in my account, so I kept asking for what my offence was while I was forced into their car.
‘’It was after I resisted that one of their superiors asked them to let me off their van because I did not look like someone who has money. So I was pushed out of their van in the middle of the road.
‘’We know that you [the government] are not doing anything for us. No good roads, no hospitals, no electricity and everything is upside down but why are the police still killing us?’’ He queried.
Solidarity
On the second night of the vigil protest, the police forcefully took the canopies under which the protesters were gathered, leaving them exposed to the elements of weather on the cold night. They also towed cars belonging to protesters in betrayal of their words to protect the protesters.
The protesters defied this act and shared their plight on Twitter. This spurred a crowdfunding effort to provide essentials for the protesters. By Friday morning, one of the listed accounts had received over 500,000 naira to provide feeding.
‘’Nobody organized us,’’ one of the numerous volunteers who were clearing the litters and distributing food and water said. ‘’We just came here and we saw that we needed to help to keep the protest going so that people won’t be tired,’’ she said.
Protesters had enough to eat and drink all the while they stayed there.
More blood, sorrow and tears
As part of the reform promised by Yemi Osinbajo in 2018, the National Human Right Commission inaugurated a seven-man panel which was created in September of the same year. The committee submitted their report nine months later, on June 3, 2019, but the recommendations remain unimplemented.
In 2018, the same year the former Inspector General of Police, Idris Ibrahim, was directed to start the reform process; Ifeanyichukwu Ogu, 22, was arrested by SARS officers after a theft had occurred at the house he was staying with his friends in Owerri, the capital of Imo state. Two months later, his family retrieved his body in a morgue.
His younger brother Johnson* shared his story with me.
‘’It was a few days after Easter Sunday and my brother and some other boys were gathered in a house,’’ he said. ‘’There was a reported case of laptop theft and the owner of the laptop called SARS officers who were going by the road that time.
‘’They took my brother and two others away. Nobody knew their base, even the owner of the stolen laptop. After some time, my brother tried to reach us and said they have accused him of stealing the laptop and he must confess to the crime and name his accomplices.
‘’We kept calling the number and they said they are still investigating and later… that he had confessed to stealing the laptop which was not true. The two other boys were released. They survived the interrogation. When we asked of my brother, they said he was taken out of the cell one morning and he was not returned until they left there.’’
The family persisted in their search for Ifeanyi and reported the matter to the village head but all their efforts were futile until one day when they called the number and the person on the other line told them the hospital to find him.
‘’On getting to the hospital, we were directed to the mortuary. The doctors said the day they [SARS officers] brought him, he was already critically [sic] dead and there was no way they could revive him. It took two months to get the body of my brother.’’
Ifeanyichukwu’s story did not trend on Twitter, neither did the experience of Clarence, a resident of Lagos, whose eardrum was perforated after he was randomly arrested by SARS officers in Abraka, Delta state in March 2020.
They said I am into fraud and I should write a statement that I am a fraudster and a cultist. I refused to and they started hitting me from all angles. I could not see, it was one of the slaps from behind that hit me the most on my ear and I fell from the impact
CLARENCE NARRATES HIS ENCOUNTER WITH SARS
Clarence was returning home from a viewing centre when the motorbike he was on was flagged down by SARS officers who immediately asked for his phone when he came down.
‘’They just asked for my phone and passed it around. I could not see because it was late in the night around 9 pm,’’ he said. ‘’They did not even go through it because it was an iPhone X. They just told me to enter their van and they took me to their station.
‘’At their station, I was kept in a dark room with others for interrogation. That was when they started checking my emails, pictures and chats and they saw that I am a forex trader.
‘’They said I am into fraud and I should write a statement that I am a fraudster and a cultist. I refused to and they started hitting me from all angles. I could not see, it was one of the slaps from behind that hit me the most on my ear and I fell from the impact.’’
Clarence did not know the slap had perforated his eardrum until much later when he started having hearing troubles.
‘’At the end, they asked me to pay them 300, 000 naira. I told I don’t have such money. I begged them down to 10,000 naira and they said I should go and withdraw it from the nearest ATM machine.
‘’Thankfully, I had another phone. While I was outside the police station, I called two people and they came to my rescue,’’ he said. ‘’Later when I went to the hospital, I was told each session to treat the ear will cost 20,000 naira.’’
Protests continue
The stories are infinite as the internet is flooded with people’s experiences. At the protest, people exchanged their experience and some just said it loudly, as though they were addressing an invisible crowd.
Upon the expiration of the seventy-two hours sit-in protest at the Lagos state’s house of assembly, the protesters plan to converge on Tuesday if their demands are not met.
‘’Is this the way we want to continue?’’ David asked. ‘’The special anti-robbery squad is supposed to protect us but they are killing people.’’
As Martins left the protest, he recounted his last incident with SARS. It was on the 28th of December last year when he was returning from work.
‘’ I was forced to alight from my Uber. It was a pay-day and I had just received my salary. When I was stopped, I had to break my ATM so that they don’t force me to withdraw the money,’’ he told me. ‘’They went through my emails and started interrogating me. I was able to escape because they saw someone driving a bigger car and they ran after him.’’
*Name changed to protect the speaker’s identity.
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