End SARS, widely written as EndSARS or #EndSARS, was a decentralised social movement and series of mass protests against police brutality in Nigeria that mainly occurred in October of 2020. The movement's slogan called for the disbandment of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), a notorious unit of the Nigerian Police known for its long record of abuse against Nigerian citizens. The protests originated from a Twitter campaign in 2017, using the hashtag #EndSARS to demand the unit's disbandment by the Nigerian government. The movement experienced a resurgence in October 2020 following further revelations of the unit's abuses, leading to mass demonstrations across major cities in Nigeria, and widespread outrage on social media platforms. The hashtag #EndSARS accumulated over 28 million tweets on Twitter alone. Solidarity protests and demonstrations by Nigerians in the diaspora and sympathizers occurred in many major cities around the world. Notably, the movement was predominantly led by young Nigerians and expanded to include demands for good governance and accountability, amidst unprecedented hardship in the country.
Within a few days of protests, on 11 October 2020, the Nigerian Police Force announced the dissolution of the unit with immediate effect. The move was widely perceived as a triumph for the demonstrators. However, it was noted in many quarters that similar announcements had been made in recent years to placate the public without the unit actually being disbanded, and that the government had merely planned to reassign and review SARS officers to medical centres rather than disband the unit entirely. Protests continued accordingly, and the Nigerian government maintained a pattern of violent repression, including the killing of demonstrators. International demonstrations in solidarity with those in the country occurred, and the movement also grew increasingly critical of Muhammadu Buhari's government response to the protests.
SARS officers were alleged to profile young Nigerians, mostly males, based on fashion choices, tattoos and hairstyles. They were also known to set up illegal road blocks, conduct unwarranted checks and searches, make arrests and detain without warrant or trial, rape women, and extort young male Nigerians for driving exotic vehicles and using laptops and iPhones. Nigerians shared stories and video evidence of how SARS officers engaged in kidnapping, murder, theft, rape, torture, unlawful arrests, humiliation, unlawful detention, extrajudicial killings and extortion of Nigerian citizens. A large number of the victims of the abuses of SARS were young male Nigerians.
The End SARS protest movement was ultimately suppressed by the Nigerian military, leading to the death of several non-violent protesters at Lekki tollgate, Lagos.
The 2020 stage of the protests saw huge and dominant Generation Z participation, and in later years was labelled as part of the Gen Z protests wave (due to END SARS' demographics and methodology) that took place around the world in the following 5 years.
Background The Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) was a unit of the Nigeria Police Force under the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department (SCIID). It was founded in late 1992 as one of the 14 units in the Force Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department, which was established to detain, investigate, and prosecute people involved in crimes like armed robbery, kidnapping, and other violent crimes. The squad was created as a masked police unit to perform undercover operations against violent crimes like armed robbery, car snatching, kidnapping, cattle rustling, and the bearing and use of illegal firearms.
SARS had been accused of several human rights violations, illegal "stop and searches", illegal arrests and detentions, extrajudicial killings, sexual harassment of women and brutalising of young male Nigerians. The human rights abuses were documented in trending videos on social media.
In 2017, Nigerian activists, youth and celebrities across the nation took to the streets in a peaceful protest to spread awareness of SARS brutality and extortions and to demand its disbanding. The protests also moved to social media using the hashtag #EndSARS.
A 2016 report by Amnesty International, indicted SARS maintaining that the squad was responsible for human rights abuses, cruelty, degrading treatment of Nigerians in their custody, and other widespread torture. Some of the human rights abuses by SARS include the shooting of their detainees in the leg, mock executions and threats of execution, hanging and physical assault. A 2020 publication by the organisation documented 82 cases of abuses and extra judicial killings by SARS between January 2017 and May 2020.
Initial protests and reactions Amnesty International accused the SARS officials of regularly detaining young male Nigerians illegally and extorting money from their relatives. In 2018, Nigerian rapper Michael Ugochukwu Stephens professionally known Ruggedman joined the campaign to end police brutality by releasing a single titled, Is Police Your Friend? In 2017, a petition signed by 10,195 people was submitted to Nigeria's National Assembly calling for a total disbandment of SARS. A few Senators backed the call for total disbandment of the unit. Consideration was given to reforming the force, rather than full disbandment due to the number of cases falling.
The campaigners moved from social media using the #EndSARS hashtag to an organized, peaceful protests in Abuja, Lagos, Ibadan, Osun, Benin, Ughelli, Warri, Ilorin, Ogbomosho, Owerri, Jos, Kaduna, Calabar and other Nigerian cities and states, threatening to continue if the government refused to disband the force.ENDSARS Protesters Ground Activities in Jos 16 October 2020 www.thisdaylive.com, accessed 18 October 2020Kaduna youths join EndSARS protest 18 OCTOBER 2020
Not only were there campaigners in Nigeria utilising the hashtag and having protests, but they were also done in London and some parts of America recognizing this situation as a global event.
In response to the campaign, then-Nigeria Police Force Public Relations Officer Jimoh Moshood accused the campaigners of being "criminals". Despite this, the then Inspector General of Nigeria Police Force Ibrahim K. Idris ordered the reform and reorganisation of SARS.
October 2020 second wave
On Saturday 3 October 2020, a video showing a SARS police officer shooting a young Nigerian at Ughelli, Southern Delta State trended on the Internet. It was alleged that the police officers took away the young man's vehicle – a Lexus SUV. The trending video caused public outcry on social media, especially on Twitter, with the #EndSARS hashtag trending.
Just as #EndSARS began to trend on Twitter, on Monday 5 October 2020, another report surfaced of SARS officers killing a 20-year-old up-and-coming musician named Daniel Chibuike, popularly called 'Sleek' in his neighbourhood. According to eyewitnesses, Sleek was sitting in front of a hotel with a friend when some SARS officers approached them, prompting them to flee. The officers chased after the pair, shouting "thief", before shooting Sleek as they ran through a supermarket. His friend was then arrested.
On Thursday 8 October 2020, nationwide protests on #EndSARS started after weeks of outrage and anger with videos and pictures showing police brutality, harassment and extortion in Nigeria. The protests were led predominantly by young Nigerians in different cities alongside many activists and celebrities. Nigeria Police Force disrupted the protests in some cities, throwing teargas, using water cannons and shooting at unarmed peaceful protesters as seen in Abuja and Osun. This led to the death of Jimoh Isiaq in Ogbomoso, Oyo State. By Wednesday, 14 October 2020, the End SARS protests were still on-going with young people in different parts of Nigeria intensifying their calls for reforms and accountability in police operations. On October 20 the Nigerian Army murdered protesters at the Lekki tollgate. The government and army deny these allegations till date.
Five demands On Sunday, 11 October 2020, the protestors made a list of five demands to be met by the Federal Government of Nigeria. The demands which were signed by a group called 'A Nigerian Youth' demanded for the immediate release of all arrested during the protests as well as justice and compensation for all who died through police brutality in Nigeria. They also demanded that an independent body be set up within 10 days to investigate and prosecute all reports of police misconduct. The protestors also asked for the psychological evaluation and retraining of SARS operatives before they are deployed to any other police unit. Lastly, they asked for adequate increase in the salaries for officers of the Nigerian police.
Nigerian Government response In response to the public outcry on police brutality, the Inspector-General of the Nigeria Police banned the FSARS, Special Tactical Squad (STS), Intelligence Response Team (IRT), Anti-Cultism Squad and other tactical units from mounting of roadblocks, checkpoints, stop-and-search and other routine and patrols. Similar bans had been announced multiple times over the previous four years, causing citizens of Nigeria to question whether the bans would actually be upheld. There were further reports of SARS officers involved in killings across the country. As this was the fourth time that the Nigerian government had announced a similar ban on SARS activity, protesters insisted that the notorious police unit be entirely disbanded and wide-ranging reform of the force to follow.
On 19 October 2020, President Muhammadu Buhari reacted to the continuation of the movement by warning young Nigerians of anarchists that were allegedly attempting to hijack the protests and stated that the federal government "would not tolerate anarchy in the country".
Central bank freezes account of protesters
On Tuesday, 20 October 2020, the Central Bank of Nigeria and its governor, Godwin Emefiele, obtained an exparte motion to freeze the accounts of notable participants in the End SARS protest. In an exclusive report by Peoples Gazette, court documents showed that the Central Bank of Nigeria failed to give any justification for the freezing order. Twenty protesters with banking with Access Bank plc, Fidelity Bank Nigeria, First Bank of Nigeria, Guaranty Trust Bank, United Bank for Africa and Zenith Bank had all accounts linked to them placed under "post no debit".
Timeline of events 8 October
Nigerian youths protested on EndSARS at the Lagos State Governor's House on Thursday 8 October and slept at the gate of the government house till Friday 9 October 2020 when the deputy governor addressed the protesters. Among the Lagos State EndSARS Protesters were celebrities Falz, Runtown, Don Jazzy, Olu Jacobs, Eedris Abdulkareem and a host of others including several comedians and other media personalities.
9 October On Friday, 9 October 2020, the deputy governor of Lagos State, Femi Hamzat addressed the protesters and acknowledged that police officers do not have the right to trample on the rights of law-abiding citizens based on their appearance or on items in their possession. He condemned police brutality and promised that the Lagos government will take action necessary to end it. The deputy governor also stated that four years previously, he had been harassed by SARS police who were not in uniform.