WHY ARE THEY KILLING US? The #EndSARS Movement
Why are they killing us? Why are they shooting at us? Is protesting a crime? Or is being a youth in Nigeria a one-way ticket to the afterlife? These are a few of the questions I have asked myself over the years and more recently, over the past week since the #EndSARS protests began.
Contrary to popular misconception, the #EndSARS movement began way back in 2016 as a largely online protest and a call to end police brutality specifically in the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, SARS Unit. Established in 1992, SARS was made to be a faceless police unit created to perform undercover operations against crimes associated with armed robbery, kidnapping, car snatching, and other crimes associated with firearms. Over time, this unit grew into a brutal force accused of extrajudicial killings, extortion, robbery, kidnapping and other heinous crimes that their autonomy has allowed them to carry out.
Everyone has a SARS story; maybe not a personal experience but everyone knows someone who has dealt with the pain and trauma that comes with being in what we loosely call a “SARS situation”. Sitting here, I can still vividly remember several ugly situations that occurred while I was a student at Delta State University, Abraka. On several occasions, these ‘officers’ barged into off-campus hostels to exhort and cause harms to students who had done absolutely nothing to them. I watched in horror as friends told shivering stories of their experiences. One particular incident still send chills to my bones. Students were having a chill Saturday when we heard the news that SARS operatives were ‘in the area’. People started panicking and running into their apartments because with SARS, you never know what to expect. After they had searched several rooms, they carted away with items they felt were too luxurious for students; they took Irons, air conditioners, Television sets, generators, refrigerators and even asked for mobile transfers simply because they could. Of course, they did not leave without assaulting and/or detaining their victims and right in my apartment, all I prayed for was that they wouldn’t get to the floor of my apartment. This was a day-time robbery I thought, but nothing was ever done about it.
Four years later, we are still begging for the right to own properties or even to live long enough to own or enjoy these properties. People have lost their lives and families over the years yet they are still assaulting, harassing, raping and killing us. How much more lives do they need to ruin? I guess they haven’t hurt enough people that is why they have continued to shoot at us while we protest for the right to live. Unarmed civilians are protesting so that our families do not bury us when we’ve barely lived but they are still claiming our lives even while we fight. This uprising has become a movement. The anger keeps growing and the movement is making history. Nigerians are saying; ‘We have had enough!’ Many of us in this generation only ever heard stories of when Nigeria was good. Old tales of moonlight it seems, as our parents think back and share these stories. We are tired of the stories. We want to live in the reality or at least set a pace for our children. This has gone beyond the #EndSARS protests. This is a movement to reform the entire police force, effect positive change in Nigeria and tell our children that we made history and fought to birth a new Nigeria.
This is the unity we have all hoped for and whenever it all feels overwhelming and exhausting, say to yourself: “We did nothing but exercise our rights, so why are they killing us?”