Editorial
EndSARS and the imperative of policing reforms
The second anniversary of #ENDSARS protests across the country by Nigerian youths on October 20th, 2020, may have come and gone. Still, the reasons for the protests, the outcome of the various investigations, and the promises made by the Federal Government to disband the murderous police unit to assuage the legitimate demands of the future leaders of this country remain unaddressed.
More importantly, the failure of the government to bring those responsible for the killings of the peaceful protesters to justice gives the impression that the era of impunity associated with military rule remained festering cancer that must be cast off our body politic and which, unfortunately, has continued to smear our transition to democracy.
Nigerians had learned to live with police brutality, torture of suspects, and the culture of Kill-and-Go under that infamous era, in the belief that a democratic era, would be different as the government’s primary responsibility is to protect citizens from harm.
However, as we have witnessed since the transfer of power to a civilian administration through a constitutional process in 1999, the police have, like the leopard, failed to shed its spots. It is one thing to blame the police for extrajudicial killings and torture of suspected criminals and see it as standard professional misconduct.
Still, it is another for the police to become the criminal, who robs, kills, profile, and prey on our youths for the mere possession of a mobile phone or a laptop or because of their hairstyle, the clothes they wear, or for driving a car.
It has become the norm for the police to subject our youths, who are bearing the burden of unemployment, poverty, and hopelessness, to constant harassment, torture, and inhuman and degrading treatment by the infamous police Special Anti-Robbery Squad, SARS, which was supposed to be the elite police crime-fighting unit.
When the police must be guided in its work by the constitution, the African Charter on Human and People’s Rights and the United Nation’s charter on civil and political rights, and other international instruments subscribed to by Nigeria to protect citizens who protest against the violation and assault on their human rights and human dignity.
It is their inalienable right as citizens to do so. They don’t require a police permit or the authority’s permission to exercise their freedom of expression, assemble, and embark on a procession. All they are required to do is for the protesters to give notice of their intention.
Rather than stop them, the police must protect them and ensure that the protest does not adversely affect other citizens pursuing their everyday endeavours and exercising those rights, freely expressed without let or hindrance.
The event of October 20th, 2020, was a tragic reminder to the Nigerian people that the egregious character of the culture of militarism, which had inhibited the full enjoyment of their democratic rights since independence and which the present generation and future generations must strive to uproot from the nation’s political culture remains a daunting task.
At the heart of this culture is the failure of law enforcement not only to secure the lives and properties of citizens but to advance the administration of justice and the rule of law. Secondly, failing to bring those responsible for these crimes to justice tends to fuel impunity and the impression that the police are above the law.
The ENDSARS protests, according to the organizers, were meant to draw attention to the menace of SARS, which it wanted to be disbanded and replaced with a well trained, resourced, and well-paid police officers that would serve citizens with respect, dignity, and integrity. The clamor for police reforms has been a clarion call for over fifty years.
When the Nigerian youths rose to chant SORO SOKE ( raise your voice in Yoruba) while waving the Nigerian Flag, the whole world, not just the nation, heard their cry. Rather than listen to this distress cry, the Federal Government unleashed the instruments of terror to crush the protesters.
In Lagos and other major cities across the country, what started as a peaceful protest was hijacked by hoodlums, who unleashed terror and mayhem on private and public properties. At the same time, police stations were also attacked and vandalized.
In Abuja, men in black suits suspected to be government goons, driving around in Toyota Land Cruisers without plate numbers, descended on youths, clubbing them and carting them away to prisons. In straightforward cases of ethnically motivated reprisals, shops of Igbo traders and car marts in the Garki Area and Apo mechanic village Areas of Abuja were ravaged and set on fire by hoodlums. Nobody was arrested or brought to justice for the wanton destructions.
In Lagos, the protests at the Lekki toll Gate, which was relatively peaceful, were dispersed with firearms by soldiers in combat uniforms. Although the number of those massacred remained in dispute, we believe that even if only one life was lost, whoever was behind it or gave the orders should be brought to justice.
While the international community received this massacre with utter outrage, the Buhari Administration, which controls the police and the Army, responded by transferring the task of judicial investigations to State governments. The outcome of these investigations, as we are well familiar with, have been mere hollow rituals.
While the lessons to be learned from this national tragedy is the urgent need to reform the Law enforcement system by decentralizing policing and management of internal security, the federal government should release all those arrested but have not been prosecuted in the last two years, compensate the families of those killed.
