Protesters in the UK.
While the rest of Sheffield celebrated their last day of freedom at pubs and clubs before the implementation of COVID-19 Tier 3 lockdown, Nigerian Youth had gathered outside Sheffield City Hall to mourn the loss of 78 of their brethren.
As I stood among the crowd witnessing my first candlelight vigil ever, everything felt so surreal. I could feel the emotionally charged atmosphere radiating all around me. Through the soft glow of candle lights on masked faces I could see eyes racked with pain, I could hear voices cracking on microphones as people broke down. Everyone stood in solidarity, empathizing with each other’s grief and anger.
“Nigeria. Is. Bleeding”. The ‘Special Anti-Robbery Squad’, originally created to protect civilians against armed robberies has morphed into a notorious policing body that abuses, extorts, and tortures citizens. Nigerians claimed that SARS was profiling Nigerian youth based on their clothes, hairstyles, and whether they had tattoos or owned an iPhone and were making unlawful arrests.
An international student from Nigeria, at the vigil, said that he felt like there was no winning for him because in the UK he is discriminated against based on the color of his skin, and in Nigeria, he would be discriminated against based on his hairstyle or the clothes he wears.
SARS was basically executing every punishable crime possible; rape, murder, theft you name it, without any contention. This was sheer abuse of power and police brutality which Nigerians were not going to stand for.
On 20 October 2020 Nigerian youth held a peaceful protest at Lekki toll gate in Lagos however, it soon turned deadly when soldiers that were deployed to contain the protests started firing into the crowd leaving several dead and wounded. IGTV videos of people falling to the ground and blood-stained national flags started to surface and made the matter a global issue.
Nigerians were even completely let down by the tone-deaf speech of their President, Muhammadu Buhari, and were infuriated by his thinly veiled threat directed towards the protesters.
October is Black History Month but, because of the atrocities being committed against black people the community is mourning their present rather than celebrating their past.
In Sheffield, people at the vigil shouted slogans like “No Nigerian is more Nigerian than a Nigerian.” urging everyone to fight for Nigeria in the little way that they could. They sang the Nigerian National Anthem and amazing grace as symbols of fraternity and hope. What one of the girls at the vigil said resonated with all of us, “We don’t need evolution, we need a revolution.”
When they read out the names of the 78 people that were murdered a boy stopped at the name Tony Zitta. He personally knew Tony and had spoken to him just a week ago. He remembered Tony mentioning that he was excited to be a part of the protest too. Little did he know that tragedy would hit just a week later.
As we stood with our heads bowed in a minute of silence, you could hear drunken screams of people leaving bars. But, at that moment, nothing mattered. We were paying our respects to those 78 brave protesters and pledging to pray for Nigeria.
The #EndSars movement is a revolution without a leader but one that will prevail. It’s chipping away at the glass ceiling of oppression and exploitation by holding people in power to account. WE will be the generation to see the end of SARS and WE will be the generation to see the end of oppression.
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