Why Nigerians are taking to the streets

After years of torture, killings, illegal detention and extortion, thousands of Nigerians at home and in the diaspora are demanding an end to Nigeria’s Police Force Unit, the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS). The wave of protests started on 8 October, after a video went viral that purportedly shows plain-clothed SARS officials killing a young man in Nigeria’s southern state of Delta. SARS officials reportedly gunned down the unidentified man and drove off in his luxury jeep.

Although authorities claim that the video was fake and arrested the man who filmed it, SARS brutality — which has festered for more than a decade in Nigeria — had reached a tipping point. From Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial hub, the protests spread into other major cities in Nigeria and across Africa, the US and Europe. It sparked the viral global hashtag #EndSARS. World leaders, sports personalities and celebrities like Lewis Hamilton, Kanye West, Hillary Clinton and Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden have shown solidarity by tweeting the #EndSARS hashtag.