On Thursday 8 October, 2020, Nigerian youths began a nationwide peaceful protest of END SARS after several months of intermittent END SARS campaign on social media platforms especially on Twitter. We’ve been pushed to the wall, we’ve had enough of a failing nation under the auspices of overtly selfish leaders who regards Nigeria and her people as a joke. And now, the SORO SOKE generation (youth) is calling on all our elected political leaders saying enough is enough, end police brutality and other evils in the land.

Initially, I thought SARS’ menace was only prevalent in Lagos then I began to realise that the evil working men called SARS are actually national evil especially in the west, east and southern part of Nigeria. Listening and reading the gory stories of how SARS has victimized and killed people is extremely sad that one begins to wonder if these people have hearts at all. To think, these SARS men are humans and Nigerians too and they are doing such inhumane brutality on their fellow human Nigerians is evil to the core.

There is never any justification for evil but let’s take a peep to the failed system that empowers the men employed as SARS officers. Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) was created in 1992 as a police force unit in the Nigerian Police to deal with robbery, kidnapping, cyber-crimes amongst others. These officers are entrenched into the force through a recruitment process that necessitate they pay an exorbitant fee before they can be absorbed into the unit.

So, it is just an ordered unfairness that they have to work cruelly to regain the money they invested during the recruitment process before they got employed. And of course, they still have to remit returns to their Oga at the top. Therefore, we have a rotten system that keeps producing SARS officers who perform the exact opposite of their job roles as security personnel and are notable for extortion, extrajudicial killings, blackmail, torture and framing.

I’m sure you have heard of the different SARS stories and these stories get demeaning and very infuriating when I hear of how SARS simply go to people’s houses and arrest youths just because they have computers and phones in active use. When did legal possession of computers and phones become a crime and a proof of cyber- crime which makes innocent people become victims of extortion or inhumane killings? Meanwhile, we can’t even be oblivious to the fact that some of the real culprits of cyber-crimes and other crimes work in collaboration with the SARS officers, taking percentage cut/share from the money earned from crimes.

The evils perpetrated by the ones that are supposed to ensure our security have arose as bad-smelling odor to the Nigerian youths and now we called for an end to every evil in the land not only police brutality, with a peaceful protest of END SARS. When you hear any Nigerian say END SARS, this is what we mean:

E– Education an Economy reform

N– Nigeria Constitution Reform

D– Debt Accountability

S– Security Reform

A-Anti-People Policies Cancellation

R-Restructuring

S-Save Cost of Governance

This is the generation that kid you not and with everything in us we clearly SORO SOKE to say END SARS and every other impunity the previous generations have condoned for too long in Nigeria. Recall that there had been previous disbandment of SARS but no, the powers that be never stuck with the disbandment and now they come up with SWAT as a replacement for SARS. Who is such a leader that would think so low of her people’s intelligence and decide to make a fool of them with the foolery of SARS/SWAT?

We can’t be fooled any longer! If this tactic has been successful in years past, we are not sorry to burst your bubble that whatever deceptive tactic you (the powers that be) choose to use will not work until we truly see an end to SARS/SWAT and a new Nigeria is truly birthed.

Nigerian youth compatriots, we have arisen, let’s stay focus in travailing for the birth of a new Nigeria that flows with milk and honey that is judiciously enjoyed by every Nigerian.

ENDS SARS!

Cheers to a new Nigeria!!!

Je t’aime mon ami