It is one year since the historic #ENDSARS protest, a youth-driven anti-police brutality demonstration, shook Nigeria.
Proscription of SARS was the primary demand of the protesters – the reason the demonstration was tagged #EndSARS. In response to the fast-spreading protest, the Nigerian government acceded to the request and announced the disbandment of the unit. It also announced the establishment of theHowever, the announcements did not satisfy protesters, who viewed them as just another renaming exercise and vowed to remain on the streets.
Although the panels in various states have awarded compensations over some of the cases, many of the petitioners, apart from in Lagos State, have not been paid. It added that “some petitions filed before the panels across the states have also suffered undue delay as a result of lack of cooperation from the police and other security agencies.”noted that some police and military officers had not been cooperative with the panel.
Mr Adamu, the Ministry of Police Affairs and the Police Service Commission also reaffirmed the constitutional rights of Nigerians to peaceful assembly and protest. The development, which involved freezing of bank accounts, confiscation of travel documents and gestapo-like arrests, was contrary to the administration’s endorsement of dialogue as the best approach to addressing the protesters’ call for justice and good governance. The government echoed this choice when the protest peaked and spread across many states.
What started as a small campaign after a video went viral of a man allegedly killed by SARS operatives snowballed into a nationwide protest in a matter of days. Many reform-seeking Nigerians said not much has changed since the #ENDSARS protests. Real change and broad structural reform of the force demanded by the protesters remain elusive, they said.
They were initially taken to Abattoir police station, formerly a facility of the disbanded SARS unit, and later arraigned at a Magistrate’s Court in Abuja where they were denied bail and then remanded at the Kuje prisons.
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