Why We Must Remember

Two years since the #EndSARS protests, Nigeria’s youth are determined to neither forgive nor forget those who abandoned them in their hour of need. In 2023, they will take the protest to the polls.

Written by Ernest Nweke

Oct 20, 2022

Photography by Ayoola Salako / UNSPLASH

Editor’s note: This essay is available in our print issue, A New Chapter for African Artefacts?. Buy the issue here.

Many scholars, activists and civil critics attribute Nigeria’s socio-political dysfunction to our short memories as citizens. ‘Nigerians are too quick to forgive and forget…,’ this Twitter user wrote, for instance. Our collective national amnesia is supposedly what allows charlatans with uncleared corruption allegations to whitewash their antecedents, rebrand as progressive politicians and re-enter the political foray.

It is now two years since the #EndSARS movement sent shockwaves across Nigeria. Election season is upon us and, as expected, politicians and their acolytes who put their pockets, interests and status over the lives of ordinary young Nigerians, have resumed their perennial attempts to ingratiate themselves to the voting populace. However, if Nigeria is to move forward, this election cycle must be different. More than ever before, it is important to recall the part that prominent political office hopefuls played (or didn’t play) in Nigeria’s most momentous civic protests since the return of democracy in 1999.

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About the Author

Ernest Nweke

is a writer based in Abuja, Nigeria.

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Why We Must Remember