Remembering #EndSARS

There has never been any doubt as to whether women make effective leaders, but with #EndSARS the fact has finally taken root in the minds of every Nigerian.

The use of music during the #EndSARs protests followed a long tradition passed down to young Nigerians who communicated through songs, the savage nature of those who hurt them and protested against that hurt in the very same breath—that they mattered and refused to bow to fear.

The hope of the #EndSARS generation suffers no disease; it does not hang on the proviso that ‘God will do it’, but looks towards the beginnings of a new Nigeria, its history reshaping, its lines being redrawn, pulling us closer into a new and promised land.

The #EndSARS protests have resulted in the emergence of a new type of hero—one from the people, for the people and by the people—which is needed in a society where our leaders have consistently failed to meet up to democratic ideals.

#EndSARS is not just one massive protest for police reform or even for democratic accountability. It is a reckoning meant to counter the crisis in governance whilst the looting which happened in the aftermath of the protests is a catharsis.

The most revolutionary thing we can do in the face of a state bent on denying our humanity, our existence, is what we have done since the protests began: insist on our role as active witnesses.

As we continue to live in a moment where #EndSARS protesters have made explicit the issue of police brutality in Nigeria, connections drawn between other movements outside and within the continent provide a framework to think about liberation as a global struggle.