Today, demonstrators at the toll gate were dispersed by police using tear gas, as seen in a video that has since appeared online. The demonstrators were marching in memory of those who had died during the demonstration two years prior. According to information obtained, both protesters and bystanders are currently evacuating the area of the #EndSARSmemorial procession. Oba Adeoye, an Arise TV journalist, was allegedly harassed as well. As of the time this report was filed, attempts to contact Benjamin Hundeyin, the Lagos State Police Command's spokesperson, were unsuccessful since he did not return calls or texts.
A series of large-scale rallies against police brutality in Nigeria with the hashtag #EndSARS. The Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), an infamous division of the Nigerian Police with a lengthy history of mistreating Nigerian civilians, is to be disbanded, according to the government. The hashtag #EndSARS was used in a Twitter campaign in 2017 to call for the Nigerian government to dissolve the unit, giving rise to the protest's name. Following a resurgence in huge protests in Nigeria's major cities in October 2020, which was accompanied by loud anger on social media, fresh details of the unit's atrocities were made public. On Twitter alone, there have been about 28 million tweets with the hashtag. In several major cities throughout the world, Nigerians in the diaspora and supporters held solidarity protests and demonstrations. The protests are notable for being supported by a completely youthful Nigerian demographic. Given the extraordinary hardship in the nation, the movement has since grown to include calls for effective and transparent governance.
After a few days of demonstrations, on October 11, 2020, the Nigerian Police Force declared that the unit will be abolished immediately. The action was hailed as a victory for the protests. The government had only intended to reassign and review SARS personnel to medical centers rather than completely abolish the unit, it was noted in many quarters, and similar pronouncements had been made in recent years to appease the public without the unit actually being disbanded, adding that rather than abolishing SARS completely, the government only intended to shift and review SARS officials to medical centers. The Nigerian government has maintained a pattern of brutal repression, including the killing of protesters, as a result of the ongoing demonstrations. International protests have taken place in support of those taking place in the nation, and the movement has grown more critical of Muhammadu Buhari's administration's handling of the demonstrations.
According to allegations, SARS agents create profiles on young Nigerians, primarily men, based on their clothing choices, tattoos, and hairstyles. They were also well-known for setting up unauthorized roadblocks, carrying out unauthorized checks and searches, detaining people without cause or due process, raping women, and extorting young Nigerian men for using laptops and iPhones and driving expensive cars. Nigerians have shared both personal accounts and video proof of SARS officers abusing Nigerian residents through kidnapping, murder, theft, rape, torture, illegal arrests, humiliation, unlawful imprisonment, and extrajudicial killings. Young Nigerian men made up a sizable portion of the SARS abuse victims.
#ENDSARS #ENDSARSMEMORIAL #POLICE #LEKKITOLLGATE #TEARGAS #PROTESTERS
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