Nigeria goes on offense against youth protests

LAGOS, NIGERIA — Nigeria's leaders have made a show of responding to the demands of a massive youth-led uprising over police brutality that recently brought the country to a standstill and captured global attention.

The government has commissioned panels of inquiry into police brutality, and the president promised to disband the notoriously abusive police unit known as the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, or SARS.

But at the same time, protesters say that the government is conducting a targeted campaign against people associated with the uprising in order to harass, impede and break up the movement — destroying any good faith the government had hoped to build.

"They are persecuting peaceful, and actually quite patriotic, young people," said Chidi Odinkalu, senior manager for Africa at the Open Society Justice Initiative.

Nigeria — Africa's most populous nation — was turned upside down last month by an uprising that grew into the largest popular resistance the government has faced in years. The demonstrations began as an outcry against the SARS police unit but evolved into a larger protest over bad governance.

The government has adopted a two-pronged strategy to try to put a stop to the uproar. It has tried to persuade people that it is listening to the protesters — commissioning panels of inquiry and announcing that SARS is being disbanded. But it is simultaneously using its power to repress and intimidate activists by throwing many people in jail, and harassing others in ways large and small.

One example of the government's two-faced approach was on display this month in a packed hearing room in Lagos overlooking the ocean, where a panel was supposed to be holding a hearing on police brutality.

"How can I be asking as a citizen of my country for better government, for an end to police brutality," said Bolatito Olorunrinu, one of the youth panelists, a 22-year-old student at Lagos State University, "and my government turns around to tag me a terrorist? It's saddening."

Warned of threats to their safety, some high-profile activists with the movement, known by the hashtag #EndSARS, have gone into hiding or left the country. There was a public outcry when Modupe Odele, a lawyer helping the protesters, said that her passport was confiscated at the airport. She says she was prevented from traveling but recently got her passport back.

The country's top police official said this month that his officers had arrested more than 1,500 people during and after the protests suspected of taking part in violence.

The government has moved to use its authority to shut down the movement. Lagos, Nigeria's biggest city, banned demonstrations. Powerful state governors in the country's north last week called for censorship of social media, which had played a decisive role in mobilizing the marches.

On Oct. 20, the military was deployed to the site of a long-running peaceful #EndSARS protest in Lekki, an affluent area of Lagos, shortly after sunset. Floodlights were turned off. Then the soldiers began to shoot.

Abuses by Nigerian security forces are nothing new. In the northeast, home to the terrorist group Boko Haram, women have been raped by soldiers and babies and children locked up. In the capital, Abuja, and the nearby city of Kaduna, minority Shiite protesters have been killed.

But #EndSARS had attracted social media influencers, musicians, Nollywood actors and reality TV stars. The Lekki incident drew international condemnation, including from U.S. President-elect Joe Biden and Beyoncé.

"It's one thing to shoot protesters in the relative backwaters of Kaduna," said Odinkalu. "It's another thing to shoot protesters under the clear gaze of upmarket Lagos. The political ramifications are higher."

The Lekki shooting was one of the things that the Lagos inquiry has been investigating, before it was boycotted over the frozen bank account. Adesina Ogunlana, a lawyer who appeared at the hearing and said that he represented the #EndSARS movement, compared the Lekki shootings to tinko, a kind of Nigerian sun-dried meat.