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In a letter from the Birmingham city jail in 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote: “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.” This quote came to mind as I read about the protests against police brutality in Nigeria, which echo the same sentiment of many of us in the U.S. Today's email encourages us to draw awareness and accountability to these protests, and keep a global perspective on our anti-racism work.
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By Nicole Cardoza (she/her)
Citizens in Nigeria have been protesting since early October against police brutality, gaining international attention. More people have died from police brutality than COVID-19 since the nation’s lockdown (BBC), and decades of abuse have prompted youth organizers to take to the streets and social media to demand change. Demonstrations in solidarity have been organized in cities around the world, including Atlanta, Berlin, New York, and London (NYTimes). As protests escalate in Abuja, the nation’s capital, so does the violence against the protestors in a series of organized attacks (BBC). But the movement shows no sign of slowing down.
The Special Anti-Robbery Squad, referred to as SARS, is a unit of the Nigerian Police Force. It operates undercover, wearing plainclothes and driving unmarked vehicles. It was intentionally designed to root out corruption in stealth (Washington Post). But that anonymity has been co-opted for manipulation. Through the years, disturbing reports of violence and corruption have mounted against SARS. Amnesty International has documented at least 82 cases of “torture, ill treatment and extra-judicial execution” by SARS between January 2017 and May 2020 (Amnesty). Dare Olaitan, a 29-year-old filmmaker, reflects on being pulled over multiple times and forced to withdraw cash from the ATM (Washington Post). More damning reports of torture were found on detainees of SARS victims, often carried out by high-ranking police officers (Amnesty).
“No circumstances whatsoever may be invoked as a justification of torture. In many cases the victims are the poor and vulnerable, easy targets for law enforcement officers whose responsibility it is to protect them.”
Osai Ojigho, Director of Amnesty International Nigeria
Most of these victims are young men between the ages of 18 and 35, which is important to note (Amnesty). Nearly half of Nigeria’s population of 182 million is below age 30, one of the world’s largest concentrations of young people (NYTimes). This young generation has quickly swelled the protests into an international movement by organizing both online and off, using Twitter in particular to spread awareness of the growing unrest. As of Friday, October 16th, the hashtag #EndSARS was posted on Twitter over 3.3M million times, generating over 744,000 retweets.
Despite this, the Nigerian government has failed to take action. Shortly after protests swelled, Nigeria’s government announced that SARS would be disbanded. But citizens are not convinced. This is the fourth time the government has said they would dissolve SARS, aptly described by Gimba Kakand as “old wine in a new bottle” (Time). This time, they gave it a new designation: Special Weapons and Tactics Team, or SWAT, which, for what it’s worth, doesn’t exactly sound like a reassuring change of pace.
Protesters aren’t going to quit until the president takes more action not just to disband SARS, but implement more comprehensive solutions, including psychological evaluations for reassigned SARS officers, better pay for officers, and compensation for victims of police violence (NYTimes). And this movement is transforming into a broader call for accountability for other injustices, like widespread poverty and political corruption (Time). These issues are partially why 45% of Nigerian adults said they plan to move to another country sometime within the next five years – and why most of all African immigrants to the U.S. are Nigerian (Pew Research).
Does these calls for justice sound familiar? It should – they mirror the racial reckoning that’s unfolded in the U.S. over the past few months. And that’s part of why this movement is gathering so much attention here in the states, which traditionally falls silent when it comes to international issues. Nigeria is, by population, the largest Black nation in the world. Standing for justice is an act of solidarity for Black people everywhere, regardless of which country they call home. It’s also a way to act in solidarity with the tens of thousands of Nigerian Americans who face the same police brutality in the U.S. It’s no surprise that the most outspoken celebrities on this issue are Black (CNN).
“True to what's happening in the U.S. and around the world, with the pandemic, people have just been pushed until they break. They're already living paycheck to paycheck, living at the margins of society in terms of the ability to survive, and then you have police who are brutalizing them. It's like, how much can you take from us? So the fact that our lives are quite literally being taken and snuffed out and we're being brutalized and beaten, you know...it's just, "Enough." The imagery and the rallying cries are so incredibly similar, because the issues are connected; poor governance, poverty, injustice in every system, from health care to high unemployment rates to the criminalization of poor people.”
Opal Tometi, co-founder of Black Lives Matter, for Vogue.
And, there’s also a direct link between the violence inflicted by police officers in Nigeria and the U.S. In the past, our law enforcement has trained members of the Nigerian police in human rights. Prince Williams County in Virginia, the same that used tear gas and rubber bullets against peaceful protesters this summer (Prince Williams Times), provided a “hands-on, scenario-based approach” in stability restoration (U.S. Embassy). The U.S. has also sold equipment and weapons to the Nigerian army and security forces (Washington Post). As residents of the U.S., we must hold ourselves accountable. But as a nation, we must hold ourselves responsible for our contributions to this injust system.
Moreover, police brutality is a global issue. Whether you’re in Brazil or the Philippines, China, or Canada, people around the world have been reckoning with state-sanctioned violence, much of which is rooted in racial bias. When we stay silent on police brutality beyond our border, it further normalizes it everywhere, including on our home turf. So can we commit to re-investing in community services that support not just our country but the whole world?
With technology, countries are closer than ever. And what we do here reverberates around the world. We need to stand for the injustices we face here – and around the globe. More urgently, we need to listen and learn from the activists dismantling oppression in their communities as we do the same in ours. Perhaps awareness of the similarities countries around the globe are facing will drive more empathy than xenophobia, and unite us in a collective path for liberation.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
#EndSars is a youth-led movement to end police brutality in Nigeria
Police brutality is a national and global issue, standing up for injustice needs to be here and everywhere
Although SARS has been "disbanded" by the government, protests are calling for more comprehensive accountability
RELATED ISSUES
6/22/2020 | Talk about our right to protest.
9/24/2020 | Demand justice for Breonna Taylor.
6/10/2020 | Defund the police.
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