MATTERS ARISING IN NIGERIA: THE CITIZEN, THE GOVERNMENT, AND THE POLICE.

“Arise O Compatriots! Nigeria’s call obey

To serve our father land, with love and strength and faith

The labour of our heroes past shall never be in vain

To serve with heart and might

One nation bound in freedom, peace, and unity.”

• The first stanza of the National Anthem.

The sun blazed with intensity at 1pm WAT at the bustling phase 2 junction of Jikwoyi, a suburb of Abuja, the capital city of Nigeria. I had visited the community for business and decided to get some fresh bananas. Hardly had we parked to get some that loud voices bellowed from behind and some men began to hit our car. “Who parked this car here? Who get this vehicle? Wey the driver?” They shouted into the crowd as the driver of their Toyota Hilux van swerved dangerously in-and-out of the busy road. Just one look at their brandished AK-47s and uniform, you could tell they were men of the police force and ready to shoot. I sat in the passenger seat beside the driver. They marched me down and asked the driver to step out from the crowd. They shoved him into the vehicle and kidnapped him with the car. I retreated into the crowd, carefully took as many screenshots as possible, and began to call for help on twitter. Less than 5mins after they had gone, they returned with speed, peered through the crowd and ordered me to get into the vehicle. Obviously, my driver must have told them he does not own the car and have no money. Without a word, I retreated further into the crowd. Reeking of hard drugs and alcohol, they boasted of their might: “you don’t know the police? We will arrange 10-count charges for you now now and you will rot in jail. Get into the car!” I did not move. When they got nowhere with their huff and puff, it became embarrassing to remain adamant in the face of the crowd and they left. I called the PoliceCRU, a response unit set up by the police to attend to civilian harassment by the police force, but the response I got was dismissive. I got a call from my driver asking me to meet him about 500 meters away, but as a born and bred Nigerian, I knew they probably put a gun on his head to make the call just to kidnap me. I asked him to return to the same spot they took him from if he had been released. After some hours of failed gimmicks to get me arrested/kidnapped, they released him and he returned. I searched the vehicle to be sure they had not planted drugs or weapons on us just to waylay us and “legally” arrest us.

Now, a background to this. I was asked to get out of the car because it could never have crossed their minds that I owned the car. Nigerian security officials and road safety officers are highly disrespectful of women, particularly in northern Nigeria. I sat in the passenger’s seat beside the driver because it saved us time and money every day. When they sight a woman at the back seat, it gives them the impression that she is a big “small girl” who does not just own a car, but has a driver, and thus can afford to shell some cash their way. They are quick to stop such cars for no reason but to delay and extort them. Hence, my decision to stomach the negligible disrespect from my driver and sit beside him. Severally, I was asked to “shut up!” whenever I tried to speak for my driver; once, I had my license seized and got a ticket of five thousand naira because my visiting manager, a female, withstood them. As the driver of the vehicle, I was “emotionally” punished with leniency. Matter of fact, the road safety officer said he would have impounded my vehicle but because I was well-behaved, he would only give me a ticket to teach her a lesson. Talk about the impunity and high-handedness meted to Nigerian citizens every day. A kilometer after surviving Federal Road Safety Corps officers, you meet Vehicle Inspection Officers, and just 400 meters after that might be the dreaded men of the Police Force waiting to receive you. This is the daily experience of the Nigerian citizen.

And this is the Nigerian story.

In response to armed robberies, the Nigerian Police Force constituted a Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) to combat armed robbers who are equipped with sophisticated weapons to besiege banks. This led to the adoption and proliferation of security doors, and ban on phone use in banks nationwide. Such doors and security measures were later adopted by corporations, airports, churches, and government institutions when terrorism became established in Nigeria. It was often a relief to hear that SARS were at a robbery scene. The success rate was remarkably so high that such robberies drastically reduced. However, the past five years have featured a boom in the harassments that Nigerians face daily at the hands of people paid to protect and serve them. There were two notorious robberies in Lagos and Lokoja respectively that SARS did nothing about. Rather, politicians bickered endlessly on who sponsored the robbery and there was no justice for the lives lost. Southern Kaduna has been plagued by daily and incessant murders. Thousands of people have been displaced. And this is not peculiar to southern Kaduna alone. It is a northern crisis. We have also seen the fall of our soldiers as they continue to battle and repel terrorists in the NorthEast. In the South where Boko haram is absent, SARS has ordained itself as the terrorist of the people. With no robberies to go after, they profile and harass young people. They kidnap people and drive them to ATMs, demanding money for them. Sometimes, they moved about with POS machines to directly extort people. If your relative went missing, and he is a young male, you are advised to visit the police stations first because the chance is very high that he has been kidnapped by the police.

In the last two months, SARS has gone from waylaying you on the road to barging into your home and rob you. They profile everyone as a cyber criminal while being friends with actual internet fraudsters. It is a crime in Nigeria to wear jeans. It is a crime to have an iPhone. It is a crime to have a laptop. It is a crime to have a car. Recently, it became a crime to be broke. Just within the week, a young man on his way to work was arrested and on hearing that he was broke and had only five thousand naira to his name, they drove him to an ATM and demanded that he withdrew four thousand and nine hundred naira for them. It became a crime to also use Bolt or Uber, as it became glaring that they partner with these drivers to deliver passengers to be kidnapped.

How did the Nigerian resilience become a revolution?

Being a very divided country, it is almost impossible to get Nigerians to be united on anything that is not about the national soccer team. However, there has been growing concerns over political and regional issues, closure of borders, untold hardships, insecurity, government insensitivity, unemployment, and a massive exodus of skilled Nigerians to any country that can offer a semblance of sanity. The health sector was one of the worst hit and medical consultants, nurses, and junior doctors are on a flight to the UK, Saudi, US, and even Canada; the minister of health went on national television to advise doctors to embrace tailoring and stop complaining. With the rising spate of unemployment and seamlessness of technology across continents, many professionals are ditching their professions for a career in information technology. Hence, a boom in the number of programmers, graphic designers, social media marketers, copywriters, etc, and a corresponding increase in the number Mac computers and iPhones. Creatives do not necessarily have to go to work in ties and suits and trimmed hair. The industry allows for flexibility. These are the people that SARS deliberately and mischievously target and label as internet fraudsters. Four times in three years, Nigerians have demanded the proscription of SARS and on every occasion, SARS has been banned. It is funny that as the government is announcing the ban via twitter, through its media aides, SARS men are on the streets flouting the orders with impunity.

There comes a time when enough is actually enough. And that time is now, when though the government has gagged the press, Nigerians are raising their voices globally, demanding respect and citizenship from an oppressive administration that swore to protect and honor the dignity and sacrosanctity of the Nigerian live, but under whose watch, from the north to the south, from the east to the west, both military and civilians, terrorists in uniform and mufti have taken over in country to rob, maim, rape and kill the citizens; they do not just go scot-free but are excused and defended by the government. It is impossible to lose your citizenship in your own country. It is impossible to be from Nigeria and be stateless. You cannot be a second-class citizen in another country, and actually be no citizen in your country. Statelessness is illegal. Oppression is illegal.

On this note, Nigerians took to digital and physical streets to protest this inhumanity. This injustice. We are battered home and abroad. We wear an image that does not represent who we are just because we are born into a country that does not just only care but seeks to set you back and destroy you for every move? Citizens pay taxes and still provide infrastructure. Citizens go to vote, and return as carcasses, murdered by political criminals. Citizens provide their own jobs and end up in prison without trial, or end up gunned down by the bullets their taxes bought? The government successfully gagged the media such that the television and radio houses are not covering the protests. However, the citizens ensured that the government failed in passing the social media bill because twitter is how Nigerians get justice.

A very interesting perspective on citizenship. Citizenship is the right of belonging to a country. Twice in the holy book, Apostle Paul laid claim on his Roman citizenship when the centurion directed soldiers to flog him before trial.

“Is it legal for you to flog a Roman citizen who hasn’t been found guilty”

On another occasion, Paul visited Jerusalem and was to be stoned by the people when the soldiers arrested him; he addressed the commander:” I am a Jew, born in Tarsus…a citizen of an important city”. The commander yielded.

The president, the inspector general of police, the commissioners of police, and the respective governors in whose state these injustices are ongoing have been arrogantly silent or sent their aides out to call people names and undermine their integrity and intent. So, we resist this vehemently. At Alausa, Lagos State government house, protesters have been sleeping overnight, defying mosquitoes and the dangerous night. Their tents were seized by the police and the lights were out on them until Nigerians woke up and began to call the attention of the international community to the lives of the 46 protesters who camped outside Alausa. A lady was shot in the mouth, a little boy was shot in the leg, a young man was shot in Delta, a young man was killed in Oyo. In Abuja and Ife, protesters were met with live ammunition and tear gas. So today, all over the world, Nigerians have arisen and taken over the streets. Mothers are out there protesting. Enough!

The tears of a father weeping over the dead body of his son, the agony of parents anointing their children with oil before they step out…let’s do a roll call.

1.Tiyamiu Kazeem : He was a footballer pushed out of a moving SARS vehicle.

2. Ifeoma Abugu: She was raped and murdered in detention.

3. Chibuike Anams: Killed in a guest house while with his friend.

4. Christian Ugwuoke: Killed at a funeral.

5. Aneka Okorie: killed because he refused to pay a bribe.

6. Tina Ezekwe: a child. She was killed she was standing at a bus stop.

7. Fredrick: killed during an argument with a policeman.

8. Solomon Eze: killed during an argument with a policeman.

9.Ayomide Taiwo: Killed because he refused to give a bribe.

10.Godsower Edoha: Killed in his home.

11. Jimoh Isiaq: one of the protesters killed today by the Police.

12. Rinji Bala Peter: killed during the protests.

The list is endless. Many more innocent souls are still in police cells. Some are kidnapped, raped, killed, and duped in wells. Men of the police force openly brag about wasting civilian lives. As we approach the yuletide, they will go out to capture more people. Need I remind the government that just about a year ago, scores of women in Abuja, some with babies on their backs, were randomly arrested, raped, and locked up by these police officers who brag about being above the law. Need I tell the world, that these men are never brought to justice. Rather, they get redeployed and promoted.

The millions of Nigerian youths pounding the streets have refused to back down, and refused to have our mission infiltrated by politicians and their cohorts. We are determined to push to the ends of the earth till justice cascades. It is in the best interest of the government to end SARS immediately and proceed to reform the police. We outnumber the politicians, the police, and their bullets. For every one they kill, they spur thousands more to hit the streets. Protesters are well equipped with medical supplies, snacks, and drinks to keep the energy going. From bus drivers to consultants of surgery, we are all on the streets for ourselves, our country, and posterity. The protests have been peaceful, protesters in large numbers are unarmed. Nobody wants violence, no lootings, no robberies, except for the bullets of the officers trained at us. The government has called us lazy, docile, and all sorts. Here are we on the streets, fighting for the soul of Nigeria in our “laziness”, raising millions within ourselves to treat the wounded and feed the hungry.

Need I remind the leaders what our constitution states:

CONSTITUTION OF THE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA 1999

We the people of the Federal Republic of Nigeria

Having firmly and solemnly resolve, to live in unity and harmony as one indivisible and indissoluble sovereign nation under God, dedicated to the promotion of inter-African solidarity, world peace, international cooperation and understanding

And to provide for a Constitution of promoting the good government and welfare of all persons in our country, on the principles of freedom, equality, and justice, and for the purpose of consolidating the unity of our people

I reiterate the question from a Lagos protester: “On whose orders are you killing us?”

I call on President Muhammadu Buhari, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces and Grand Commander of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to answer the question or face the music. Nigerians are speaking against age-long impunity, incompetence, corruption, and injustice by the highly placed. #EndSARS is just the convergence.