Leaving Nigeria After #EndSARS

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#EndSARS 2025NigeriaOctober/November 2025Special Focus: #EndSARS
#EndSARS

Illustration by Charles Owen / THE REPUBLIC.

THE MINISTRY OF CULTURAL AFFAIRS

Leaving Nigeria After #EndSARS

I knew policemen as neighbours, as fathers of schoolmates, as bullies, as murderers. Even though the protest was my first, it was nothing new. They were killing and harassing young boys; we needed to speak. Everything was the same until DJ Switch went live on Instagram that night.
#EndSARS

Illustration by Charles Owen / THE REPUBLIC.

THE MINISTRY OF CULTURAL AFFAIRS

Leaving Nigeria After #EndSARS

I knew policemen as neighbours, as fathers of schoolmates, as bullies, as murderers. Even though the protest was my first, it was nothing new. They were killing and harassing young boys; we needed to speak. Everything was the same until DJ Switch went live on Instagram that night.

I used to believe that good was rewarded by the universe with good. Most people do. It’s why Theodore Parker’s quote, ‘The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,’ is so popular. 

On 7 October 1967, the leaders of Asaba town attempted a show of support for ‘One Nigeria’. The Biafran War was breathing down their necks, so they made a last-ditch attempt to show they were on the likely winner’s side. In Ogbe Osowa, they dressed up in ceremonial white clothing and lined the roads singing ‘One Nigeria’ songs. It did not work. The men and boys were separated, gathered in the square and shot. Some bodies were retrieved and buried; hundreds of bodies were never found. The people of Ezenei, Ugbomanta, Ajaji and Umuonaje, the kindreds most affected, cannot answer this question accurately: Where are the rest of the bodies?

LAGOS, 2020

53 years passed. In the days leading up to 20 October 2020, the End SARS protests were gaining traction. Nigerians, most of them young men and women, were protesting police brutality. On 11 October 2020, my wife and I entered the body of a small crowd at Allen Avenue, Ikeja, chanting End SARS! The small crowd swelled in size as we walked. By the time we got to Toyin Street roundabout, there were so many people, we had to hold hands to avoid losing each other. I walked slowly as I was just recovering from an illness, my wife eager and strong, pulling me along. The crowd paused briefly at Toyin, then continued into Opebi Road. At Chicken Republic, we turned onto Opebi Link Road, overwhelming the small stretch. About eight men in a white Hilux truck, four in the truck, four sitting on the tailgate holding signs joined us where Opebi Link Road and Kudirat Abiola Way abut, the crowd, millipede-like, with the white truck at its head, turned left into Kudirat Abiola Way, right into Olarenwaju Street, where a small fight sparked and   I began to tire at Billings Way, or maybe I was afraid, we dropped towards the tail of the crowd as it began turning into Governor’s Avenue. At Alausa, we met a small crowd of people who had slept on the floor the night before. We drank water and resumed chanting ‘End SARS!’. Soon, a murmur found its way to us. The governor was going to come out of his office and address the crowd. After about one hour, we extricated ourselves, a small trickle, out of the side of the millipede, called an Uber and went home.

As I type out this passage, my body sinks into a seat pushed by gravity, as the Southeastern high-speed train heads into London St Pancras. I search WhatsApp for the words ‘Lekki Toll’. On 13 October 2020, Funmi and Aishat protested at the Lekki toll gate and went home. Seven days later, on 20 October, the protesters at the Lekki Toll Gate were still holding strong in the morning. They had decided to tourniquet a major artery. The government announced a curfew that afternoon, too late for people to find their way home, so the crowd decided to sleep in. There was a DJ, music, waving flags and games. Bodies swaying to music as the dark crept slowly in. Then someone or a group turned off the lights of the toll gate, and the darkness enveloped. DJ Switch went live on Instagram. I lay in bed, in Bariga, on my side, watching as the shooting began. Sometimes it was hard to make out anything; DJ Switch’s hands were shaky, and so was the phone, but then a flash of light, a body, red blood, green-white flag, then darkness again. I lay very still, so the phone would not shake, so I could see better.

There is a badly done scan uploaded by the Lagos State Ministry of Justice of the final report from the Lagos State Judicial Panel of Inquiry on Restitution for Victims of SARS-related Abuses and Other Matters. This panel, which was set up to investigate victims of SARS, focused quite a bit on victims predating the protest. But the bodies of the shooting at Lekki Toll Gate that night of 20 October are hidden within the last two words ‘Other Matters’. On page 14, the report says: 

The panel found that the Nigerian Police Force deployed its officers to the Lekki Toll Gate on the night of the 20th of October 2020 and between that night and the morning of the 21st of October 2020, its officers shot at, assaulted and battered unarmed protesters, which led to injuries and deaths. The police officers also tried to cover up their actions by picking up bullets.

The people shot say it was soldiers, and so do the videos.

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SOME OF THE BODIES

45 days later, on 4 December 2020, Arise TV uploaded a video on its YouTube channel where it interviewed some of the victims and the relatives of the dead.

Edwin Augustine’s beard is a good beard, not too full, but not struggling to connect either. The video’s sound quality is good. You can hear the bass in his voice. He is wearing a white T-shirt with Louis Vuitton inscribed in brilliant blue where the breast pocket should be. The V in the Vuitton is larger than the other letters. The beige beanie on his head doesn’t sit fully. He is wearing yellow shorts. The short is rolled up on the right thigh to allow for the bandage and metal frame. ‘I wonder why the government is saying they did not shoot us, when I still have the bullet in my thigh at this very time and day.’

Tunde Odeyemi speaks for his son. The X-ray says blood has pooled in some parts of the boy’s brain, so he cannot speak clearly. The boy is slumped on the cloth-embroidered chair while his father is perched on the arm of the chair. It’s not a very comfortable position, but might have been chosen for camera and light framing. There is a still-healing scar across the nameless boy’s face from the corner of the right eye, down and over the mouth to the corner of the bottom lip on the left, lifting the mouth into a snarl. A gash on his wrist has the whitish clot colour and is ringed with the blue of gentian violet. The interviewer asks if he was protesting on the 20th of October. He says he wasn’t protesting, he was just standing there with friends when it happened.

 ‘I wasn’t protesting for anything. It was them that went there.’

‘But, you were present at the Lekki toll gate?’

‘Yes’

‘But, you didn’t join them in the protest. You were just standing there?’

‘Yes’

‘I didn’t have anything that I will use to protest.’

The interviewer’s blue shirt presses into the frame as he leans himself and the mic towards the boy’s mouth.

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Olufunmi Aiyedungbe speaks for her older brother. Her hair is packed away under a black hair net, and the way it pulls her forehead makes her face appear longer. She is seated on a plain brown couch. She says they found him alive on a hospital bed at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital, after someone sent her a WhatsApp message that the hospital was looking for his family. He had not been turned for a long time, so he had sores all over his body. ‘I think he did not get the right medical attention, so the whole thing, so, that’s what I think led to his death eventually.’

The video cuts to a wide view, panning, showing everyone in the room. A man in a white jalabiya has an injured leg held in a metal frame and propped up on a pillow on the table in the centre of the room. Another boy wearing a black Real Madrid jersey is seated in the corner, his left leg ending in a white bandaged stump at the knee. As the video ends, those who can, stand, and the sound goes up as they sing ‘Master Jesus, you are the pillar that holds my life, master Jesus, you are the pillar that holds my life.’

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THE REST OF THE BODIES

Before 20 October 2020, I didn’t really think about leaving Nigeria. I went to work and paid my rent. I bought fuel when there was no light. Paid to have the generator fixed when it got bad and loced my hair because I wanted to. Being stopped by policemen when you loc your hair in Nigeria is perfectly normal.

Where are you coming from?

Where is your ID?

Where do you work?

Come out of the car.

Unlock your phone.

Drop something.

I knew policemen as neighbours, as fathers of schoolmates, as bullies, as murderers. Even when the protest was my first, it was nothing new. They were killing and harassing young boys; we needed to speak. Everything was the same until DJ Switch went live on Instagram that night.

The next day, in the morning of 21 October 2020, angry youths headed for the police station at Bariga and tried to force their way in; they were repelled, so they started a fire. That’s when the shooting began. The police station was a mere ten steps away from the house we lived in. My wife and I heard pandemonium outside, the shattering of windows above us, and then gunfire. We scuttled into the bedroom and lay flat on the floor while the shooting went on. We didn’t stand up to drink water or pee for about four hours. We later learned that some of the youth running from police had run into our street.

I am not sure how long we were on the floor in our bedroom. The hours passed slowly and fast. I looked at my WhatsApp from time to time, replying to messages from worried friends, checking in on others. Stared at the black crooked lines in the white tile in front of me, my face so close to it I could see the ridges. Eventually, the shooting stopped, and we picked ourselves off the floor. There was broken glass in front of the door, a green bottle unbroken, catching the light. The street was quiet as if an angel was passing. And things almost went back to normal. The protest technically ended on October 20. After the murders in Lekki, it lost steam. On Twitter, the government-cultivated bot farms were active. They asked anyone who said there was a massacre: ‘#WhereAreTheBodies?’

That hashtag and the government’s denial of any sort of justice was the knife that tore the veil. I realized I lived in a country where I could be killed for protesting, and my body would not be found. I would not even get the opportunity to be a martyr. I am so used to Nigeria’s normal; I could stomach the deaths. What I couldn’t stomach was the disappearing of bodies, not giving people a chance at closure. I searched through news articles, filled with names and short descriptions, for the bodies. The man is in his late 20s, dark-skinned, clean-shaven, and has a low haircut. The man wearing blue denim jeans, floating in the lagoon.

I began planning to leave like I planned everything else; first, I tried to choose a route. Canada was popular, but COVID had led to backlogs in the Express Entry visa route. Still, I did IELTS. In November 2020, my wife and I had our traditional wedding ceremony. In February 2021, a friend reached out via WhatsApp and asked: ‘Bia, what are you still doing in Nigeria?’ He then sent me the link to the Global Talent Visa application. In June 2021, we began the process, and in October, we began our farewells. Travelling to see family across Nigeria, selling the things we could not carry, searching for foster homes for our cats.

Four years later, in 2025, the Lagos State government held an electric boat race, the E1, on the lagoon. The Lagos State governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, is the same as in 2020. He smiles and points out something on the water. I now believe that the universe does not bend towards justice. It bends towards power and those who wield it. In response, I work to create a pocket of the universe, which I control and where I fight for the outcomes I want to see. Where the larger universe affects my small home, I surrender where I cannot fight and fight where I cannot surrender⎈

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