After the infamous shooting of #EndSARS protesters at Lekki Tollgate, Lagos, by Nigerian soldiers on October 20, youth representatives were invited for talks by various state governments.
But, as governors were setting up judicial panels of inquiry, the Federal Government was surreptitiously perfecting plans to go after the protesters.
From late October to early November, bank accounts of 20 protesters and some firms linked with the protest were frozen, with many of them now feeling abandoned by the society they fought for. They live on borrowed funds and cannot hire lawyers to press their cases, BusinessDay learnt.
Eromosele Adene, one of the #EndSARS protesters, was charged and granted bail of N1 million on Tuesday. He had been held for 12 days and the police wanted a 30-day remand order against him until court’s intervention.
Also, on November 10, a charge was brought against 50 popular Nigerians who participated in the protest, including Kanu Nwankwo, former Super Eagles footballer; Sam Adeyemi, senior pastor of Daystar Christian Centre; Aisha Yesufu, vocal female activist; Joe Abah, former director-general of the Bureau of Public Enterprises, among many others.
Though it was a case instituted by a citizen, Kenechukwu Okeke, many young Nigerians on social media accused the government of engineering the suit to clamp down on future protests.
Two days ago, officers of the Nigeria Police Force blocked the road leading to African Shrine, Ikeja, Lagos, to stop a meeting on #EndSARS protest from taking place.
“Nigeria is officially a dictatorship,” Chidi Odinkalu, former head of the Nigerian Human Rights Commission, tweeted on November 17.
The aftermath of #EndSARS protest across the country shows that the Federal Government is disconnected with young people who are touted as the future of Africa’s most populous country.
Most of the issues raised by the young Nigerians during the #EndSARS protest are yet to be addressed, with government only changing SARS’ nomenclature to SWAT without major police reforms.
The public perception is that the government is lumping protesters with hoodlums who destroyed public and private properties without addressing key concerns of young Nigerians who started a protest against police brutality.
From #EndSARS, the protest changed gear to #EndBadGovernance, with young people demanding economic inclusion.
Nigeria’s President Muhammadu Buhari, 77, is governing an army of angry young people with many of them jobless and without meaningful sources of livelihood.
Following Lekki shootings, Buhari addressed the nation on October 22 without mentioning a word on the shootings. His words were more of a threat to the teeming young people who were asking for a change in style of governance, according to human rights activists and communication experts.
Farooq Kperogi, associate professor of Journalism and Emerging Media, said the speech was underwhelming and it was louder for what it did not say than for what it said.
“We need to embed in the governance process the norms and ideals of the democratic process: rule of law, transparency and accountability in political governance, and citizen engagement, among others,” Toki Mabogunje, president, Lagos Chamber of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), said in a post #EndSARS note.
Nigerians from ages one to 30 make up over 70 percent of the demography of Africa’s most populous nation. Unemployment rate is 27.1 percent, with youth unemployment estimated at 35 percent, according to the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).
Children of the rich and government officials study abroad and are guaranteed big jobs on their return to Nigeria. But many young people from poor and middle-class homes who are university students have been at home several months as a result of a prolonged strike action by the Academic Staff Union of Universities (ASUU) and they cannot get jobs in government ministries, departments and agencies after graduation unless “they know someone”,
The #EndSARS protests have focused mainly on the brutal police unit known as the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), but many young Nigerians have protested high cost of living that has permeated lives for more than one year. One protester in Lekki, on October 17, before the shooting of peaceful protesters by soldiers, brandished a placard on which was boldly written, “Our families cannot afford a bag of garri.”
Since August 2019, the Federal Government has refused to open the Nigeria-Benin Republic borders and other borders despite several entreaties. This has shot up inflation to 14.23 percent, an issue that is fuelling youth restiveness across the country.
“The government is yet to connect with the youth. They are the majority of the population, yet policies are not targeted at them. They are not part of decision-making and their minister is in his mid-50s,” a United Kingdom-based Nigerian economist, who preferred anonymity, told BusinessDay.
“Raise their skills. Many of them cannot fit into the global market space because of the type of education they have had. Give the same opportunities to everybody. Appoint them into offices, and create an environment that will encourage them to start their businesses,” the economist said.
