Nigeria is under fire, and its police units — the people meant to protect Nigerian citizens — together with Nigerian leaders are lighting the torches. Police harassment has been an ongoing problem in my country for many years. My earliest recollections of this harassment stretch as far back to when I was just five years old. Policemen would stop my mother, ask her random questions and demand money with a threat of arresting her if she did not comply. This has been the reality of many Nigerians for years. Police harassment is not new, but within the past five years, it has manifested into police brutality that is murdering Nigerian youths in droves. This brutality is upheld by the Special Anti-Robbery Squad.

The Special Anti-Robbery Squad, known as SARS, is doing almost everything apart from its job. Founded in 1992, SARS is one of the 14 units in the Force Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department which was established to detain, investigate and prosecute people involved in crimes such as armed robbery and kidnapping. Since 2015, SARS members have actively engaged in robbing, kidnapping and murdering Nigerians, particularly the youth. They have been profiling youths sporting attributes such as unorthodox hairstyles, tattoos and ripped jeans or possessing expensive technological devices, using such attributes as a basis for making unlawful and unfounded arrests. Their reasoning for making these arrests is that young people who do not have white collar jobs but are earning large amounts of money are suspicious and are probably engaging in cyber crimes. This reasoning is absolutely ridiculous considering the high unemployment rate in Nigeria and the fact that the SARS unit has nothing to do with tackling cyber crimes or money laundering, a task delegated to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.

Moreover, arrested citizens are not allowed the opportunity to due process and fair trials and are subjected to torture. Many citizens have reported that after being unlawfully whisked to a police station, SARS officials have physically abused them before telling them to transfer money to their accounts if they want to be released alive. Within the past two years, an activity that SARS has become increasingly engaged in is hijacking cars on the road and then driving the cars’ inhabitants to the ATM where SARS officers force them to withdraw money at gunpoint. At least 82 cases of SARS torture have been documented since 2017, but the number of undocumented cases immensely surpasses this number due to Nigeria’s corrupt judiciary. Nigerians have lost money, body parts, relatives, friends and their peace of mind to this menace called SARS. A website — endsars.com — has been created to document these devastating cases which never made it to the legal system.

Nigeria’s younger generation has risen to say “No more!” On Oct. 8, nationwide peaceful protests kicked off, and the message was clear both online and off: end SARS. The hashtag #ENDSARS was the number one trend on Twitter on Oct. 9. Despite Twitter shadowbanning this hashtag, Nigerians were not deterred and have been creating new hashtags every day to make sure that we are heard across all social media platforms. Protesters have mobilized in several states including Lagos, Abuja, Delta, Port Harcourt and Oyo. Those who have not been able to make it to the protests physically have been holding down the fort behind the scenes and on social media. A group called the Feminist Coalition on Twitter created a Flutterwave account where people can donate funds, which have been used to provide resources for the protests, cover the medical bills of injured protesters and cover any legal fees. It is important to emphasize that these protests have no convener — although a few people have wrongfully centered themselves in an attempt to disrupt the protests. So many individuals have donated and volunteered to help keep the protesters safe and motivated. These protests have shown that we are one people with one voice.

One would think that the government would hear the cries of the people and put an end to the dangers that are holding us back. However, Nigerian leaders are not showing that they care about us. For the past few days, they have put in more effort to silence us than to explicitly make sure that the SARS unit steps down. Even though Nigerians have a right to protest peacefully, SARS officials have repeatedly opened fire on peaceful protesters, killing and injuring many, including Jimoh Isiaq, an innocent bystander who was killed by police officers in Oyo state.

In Abuja, soldiers attacked the crew of a news station that was reporting live from the peaceful protests in the state. Their cameras were broken and a cameraman sustained head injuries. The police have also been arresting and torturing protesters at their stations. Moreover, the Central Bank of Nigeria targeted and deactivated the Flutterwave account that was set up to help protesters who have been shot or wrongfully arrested.

On Oct. 12, the Governor of Rivers State, N. E. Wike, released a statement banning all forms of protests throughout the state, despite him not having the authority to do so. He did this a few hours after the President of Nigeria, Muhammadu Buhari, declared the disbandment of SARS and claimed that there was no need for any more protests. However, it is important to note that the SARS unit has already undergone several reorganizations in the past. It was reorganized in 2017, overhauled in 2018, disbanded in 2019 and temporarily reinstated, only to be disbanded yet again in 2020.

This year, as in previous years when the group was allegedly dissolved, SARS continued operating hours after the president made the announcement, opening fire on the streets of Surulere, where I live, and in other areas as well. It seems that the government has lost control over the SARS and police officers, as they have refused to step down. We are currently living in a country where a police officer can confidently say, “So what? If [we] shoot you, won’t you just die and go?” without fear of repercussions.

Moreover, when lawyers go to the stations to get innocent individuals released, the police officers refuse to release them and even deny having them in their custody, despite some government officials giving a mandate for the individuals to be released. On Oct. 15, Nigerians were in for another shock as it appeared that the government was purposefully adding more fuel to the fire. A drove of pro-SARS thugs used a bus belonging to the government-owned Bus Rapid Transport System to get to a protest venue at Alausa, where they attacked protesters with cutlasses and knives.

The events of the past few days have further highlighted two things that Nigerians have always known — that the police do not respect the lives of citizens, and that there is a lack of accountability in all sectors of the government. If the Nigerian government was as serious about police reform as it claims, it would have launched an investigation into all SARS and police officers that have tortured, extorted, injured and killed innocent citizens this week. When SARS officials force people to transfer money at gunpoint, there are accounts that this money goes into, which can be traced. The evidence is there, but they have refused to utilize it. The government has promised us reform time and again, but they have not released a tangible timeline. The SARS officials who have been ordered to stand down have arrested and killed people, yet they themselves have not been arrested or charged for their crimes.

Nigerians have been oppressed by the government for many years and have learned to adjust to the poor standard of living. Nigeria has not seen the amplification of people’s voices in this manner in a very long time, and this is because the older generation has kept mute and assimilated into the broken system. Interestingly, the older citizens of the nation have condemned and profiled youths for years, branding them as lazy and as the phone-pressing generation. Despite this, the youth has shown incredible organizational skills and a drive for progress during these protests while utilizing their technological expertise. Despite their Flutterwave account being shutdown, the Feminist Coalition was able to set up a mechanism by which people can donate using bitcoin. Fk Abudu and Kiki Mordi on Twitter are some of the amazing women who have organized the dispersion of food, drinks, canopies, raincoats, security and legal practitioners to sustain the thousands of protesters across the nation. At the same time, the Nigerian government has provided barely any relief to the citizens during this pandemic. Every naira has been publicly accounted for by those collecting funds for the protests. Meanwhile, billions of naira have been embezzled over the years by the government, without any investigation.

Nigerian youth are the victims of a system that wants to keep the same people in power at the expense of citizens by sustaining inadequate social amenities, poor quality education, low minimum wages, high unemployment rates and, to top it off, police brutality. The youth are demanding accountability because the government is elected by us to serve us. They have awoken and catalyzed what we hope is the beginning of a revolution and a new Nigeria.