an essay on police brutality in nigeria

Police Brutality in Nigeria and the #EndSARS Movement

Daniel Chibuike was a 20-year-old aspiring musician when he was shot dead on October 5, 2020 by police officers serving in the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) of the Nigerian Police Force. Chibuike’s death was the last straw for Nigeria’s youth, who had already taken to the streets in 2017 to demand the abolishment of SARS. The Nigerian government, in a desperate attempt to calm down the protesters, promised in 2017 that the authority of SARS units would be significantly reduced, but this promise remained unkept, with SARS units continuing their violent and unlawful practices towards young adults in Nigeria. At first glance, the controversy surrounding SARS appears to be an issue of police brutality that many suffer from in countries around the world, and it certainly is. Yet, the brutality of SARS is disproportionately aimed at young males who choose to wear certain types of clothes, drive certain types of cars, and use a particular brand of smartphone. So, the cruel practices of SARS appear to be combined with social profiling that is based on the personal choices of young adults. Using a laptop, owning the newest iPhone, driving a brand-new sports car or wearing ripped jeans are all reasons why a Nigerian young adult can be detained by SARS units. Often, those who “fit the description” are quickly accused of being thieves, with SARS units assuming that young adults must have stolen the cars they drive and the smartphones they use. Despite the absurdity of SARS’ logic, practices like this have led to countless unlawful arrests of young people in Nigeria. Undoubtedly, the central theme of the issue is police brutality, but this brutality seems to be fueled by the major generational and ideological gap that exists in Nigerian society.

SARS and Human Rights

Since its establishment in 1992, SARS has been plagued by a worrisome human rights record. According to witness accounts documented by Amnesty International, SARS routinely tortured its detainees, with many detainees experiencing harsh beatings and serious death threats. Moreover, SARS has been found to have multiple officers who have been engaging in stealing money, property or forcing detainees to pay hefty bribes before freeing them—ironic for a division with the goal of preventing robbery. More importantly, individuals detained by SARS who suffer from these atrocities are often never charged in court, which means that people who are completely innocent are physically tortured and eventually left with psychological injuries. Regardless, whether a detainee is guilty or not should not be a factor in deciding who to torture as all forms of torture are illegal in Nigeria, whether someone is guilty or not guilty of a crime. Despite their atrocities, a total of zero SARS officers have been prosecuted since 2017, which, considering the extensive evidence of torture, is shocking. Clearly, SARS has enjoyed freedom in how they choose to treat detainees and received protection from the government and the courts even though their practices are against Nigerian law.

Chibuike’s death sparked the Nigerian youth to once again take it to the streets in October 2020. This time around, the protests spread to social media, with the #EndSARS hashtag on Twitter becoming the center of expression of displeasure with SARS. Protests took place not only in Nigeria, but also in the United States , the United Kingdom and Canada . Though protests were not met with force abroad, protesters in Nigeria faced resistance from the government, the police force and the army. Nigerian soldiers were seen opening fire during the protests, leaving more than a dozen protesters injured and one dead. Meanwhile, Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari remained mostly silent. Buhari’s administration had promised multiple times over the years that appropriate action would be taken against SARS, with no sufficient result ever achieved.

President Buhari's "Lazy Nigerian Youths"

While the main reason behind Buhari’s inertia toward the protests might appear to be the desire to hold his police force together, there are other reasons why the cries of the Nigerian youth have not been heard. Back on April 18, 2018, Buhari referred to Nigerian youth as “lazy” during his address to the Commonwealth Business Forum in the United Kingdom. Back then, Buhari’s description led young people in Nigeria to criticize him on Twitter with the hashtag #LazyNigerianYouths. At the age of 78, Buhari has an extensive military background, a successful coup through which he came to power in 1983, and a military-led nationwide campaign called “War Against Indiscipline” under his belt. Putting Buhari’s description of Nigerian youth and his background together, it becomes clearer why the demands of young people in Nigeria to abolish SARS were not met. The generational and ideological gap between those who are running the country and those who demand change has evidently resulted in an overall lack of empathy in Nigeria. When leaders cannot—or are not willing to—understand the problems faced by a specific group of people in the country, protests and movements like #EndSARS start to occur. While focusing only on Buhari’s approach, or lack thereof, to the issue of SARS’ brutality would be a very voluntarist approach, it is at least apparent that the constant inertia of his administration has only led to further social divide and bloodshed.

The generational and ideological gap in Nigeria also stems from the social structure of the country. Almost half of the nation is Muslim and the other half is Christian. Muslims predominantly live in the Northern regions of the country, adding a geographical aspect to the religious divide. More than 250 ethnic groups are present in Nigeria, many of whose exact population sizes are unknown due to the controversies surrounding the censuses of Nigeria. In the past, most ethnic groups have claimed that the censuses are rigged to misrepresent the actual population sizes so that the political representation granted to each group is altered. The apparent social divide between people from different backgrounds is further enhanced by the divide between people of different ages. As Nigeria experienced a population boom in the late twentieth century, it currently stands as the most populous country in Africa, with the median age in the country being approximately 18. Young adults in Nigeria are frustrated with the disconnect between them and the government, since many of their leaders are “ three or four times their age .” Young Nigerians are also discouraged by rising unemployment and poverty. As it stands, young people in Nigeria have little to no say in how they and their country are governed. When their alienation by the government is combined with unlawful and inhumane policing practices, Nigerian youth struggle to feel welcome in their own country. Initiating movements like #EndSARS is often one of the only effective ways of making their voices heard.

Can Nigerian Youth Rebuild Trust in their Government?

On October 11, 2020, Nigerian Police Force announced that SARS would be dissolved . Because the government had made the same promise multiple times before, many of the protesters were not convinced; therefore, protests continued in most states in Nigeria. In Lagos, counter-protests were staged where the #EndSARS supporters were attacked by armed suspects. About a week later, in Lekki, Lagos, the army opened fire on unarmed #EndSARS protesters, leaving at least a dozen protesters dead and many more wounded. These events show that years of displeasure and oppression cannot simply be erased by one day deciding to meet the demands of those who have been systematically persecuted for years. Young adults like Chibuike have lost their lives, many others have been left wounded or psychologically injured. In any case, #EndSARS seems to have come a long way in achieving their goal, but the government is still under watch by Nigerian youth, and there is pressure on Buhari and his administration to finally keep their promise. Shortly after the news of the dissolution of SARS, the Nigerian Police Force announced that SWAT would now carry out the duties of SARS, and that there would be “extensive reforms” within the police force. This led Nigerians to alter their message slightly and adopt #EndSWAT on Twitter. Whether or not SWAT will treat young adults better or will reforms be made remains to be seen, but the majority of the protesters are staying on alert. After years of persecution and lack of dialogue with the government, it will be a lengthy process for the Nigerian youth to rebuild trust in the law enforcement.

#EndSARS has been and continues to be a movement that demonstrates the stark contrast between different generations and ideologies in Nigeria. On one side, there is Nigerian youth that want to live as they desire and demand change. On the other side, there is Buhari, a powerful military figure with right-wing policies, and his administration trying to run an already divided nation. While it may be hard to predict whether the promises made by the government will be kept, #EndSARS has been a source of inspiration for young adults across the world who want humane policies and administrations that champion peace and equality.

Uluç Kadıoğlu

Uluç has formerly served as Associate Editor, Senior Editor, and Copy Editing Chair at the HIR. At Harvard, he studies Government and Neuroscience with a language citation in Spanish.

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Police Brutality in Nigeria: An Unending Nightmare

By Global G.L.O.W.

November 4, 2020

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Over the last month, Nigeria has been rocked by nationwide protests over police brutality following claims of violence, sexual assault and kidnapping by a special unit called Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS). 

Here, Global G.L.O.W. partnership coordinator Joyce from Nigeria Reads provides more detail surrounding these protests, and highlights the important role youth in the country have played in creating change and paving the way for a better future for all. 

Tina Ezekwe, a 16-year-old secondary school pupil, died after she was struck by a police bullet in Iyana-Oworo area of Lagos. The young girl was reportedly killed by a police officer who shot to disperse a crowd that had gathered after the shooting of a commercial bus driver who refused to pay a bribe. Over the years, there have been so many cases of police brutality and mindless murders of innocent citizens.

“Police are your friend,” a slogan used by the Nigerian police force has become a contradiction. Slogans like this have lost their meaning on Nigerians due to the inhumane treatment we suffer at the hands of our supposed “friends”.  Police brutality has been a serious challenge we have been battling in Nigeria. The police force, who have been entrusted with protecting lives and property, have abused their power. They often use force beyond the limit permissible by law, infringing on the rights of innocent civilians and causing a lot of harm and pain to people here.

We have heard of cases of victims who have experienced sexual assault, injuries and death, often the result of stray bullets and possible mistaken identities. Over the years, there has been an insatiable feeling of distrust as cases like this keep occurring. Relationships between the Nigerian police and citizens are largely characterized by suspicion, prejudice, brutality and violence.

Recently, the youth of Nigeria decided to stand up for their rights and hold a peaceful protest for the government to disband the special unit of the police force called SARS (Special Anti-Robbery Squad). This unit has been known for their harassment, extortion and killing of innocent people.

The protest remained peaceful for 12 days, during which time the undeterred youth took to the streets daily to voice their demands for a better living situation. The people of Nigeria felt that the government would have remained silent while we continued to lose young and vibrant future change-makers who had been victims of mistaken identities profiled for their looks – the color of their hair, having a new iPhone, looking good or driving a nice car.

Police have used excessive force on unarmed protesters since demonstrations began, which has resulted in the loss of life and disruption of calm within the affected states and the federal capital where our Global G.L.O.W. clubs are held.

GLOW Club members have become too afraid to come out for meetings. Parents are concerned because this situation has created an opportunity for hoodlums to take advantage and exploit hard working citizens, evading shops and plazas, looting goods and vandalizing public property. A 24-hour curfew has been imposed in some parts of the country and a Major National Examination (NECO) has been postponed indefinitely. This all comes just as we were beginning to see hope after the lockdown in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Social media has played an enormous role in this fight by amplifying our voices with the trending #ENDSARS, which has emboldened youth to unify and fight to disband the notorious SARS unit. They also seek justice for all deceased victims of police brutality with adequate compensation to the families and the establishment of an independent body to oversee the investigation and prosecution of all police misconduct within 10 days.

It is important to note that the protest in its early stages was peaceful and well-coordinated. Young people volunteered to provide logistical, medical and legal help – the latter two for injured and arrested protesters respectively, this shows how much enthusiasm the younger generation has towards national security, peace and wellbeing (mentally and physically).

We hope for a better nation and environment, that will enable growth and development in all areas of life – but especially for the Girl Child. We won’t relent but we will keep ‘fighting’ for this cause and for the betterment of the human race. We strongly believe in this process and we will surely conquer.

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Nigeria’s Police Brutality Crisis: What’s Happening Now

The authorities, unnerved in October by protests over police brutality, have promised changes. But the government’s response so far has only reinforced the views of protesters.

By Rick Gladstone and Megan Specia

Here’s what you need to know:

First, what is sars.

• What started the anti-SARS demonstrations in October?
• What are the other demands of the protesters?
• How is the government responding?
• What is the outlook for further protests?

A youth-led movement in Nigeria demanding an overhaul of how Africa’s most populous country is governed began with a protest about police brutality and expanded in October into the largest popular resistance the government has faced in years. It encompasses a range of issues, from inequality to corruption to basic distrust of politicians.

Shaken by the scope of the protests, Nigeria’s leaders have promised meaningful responses that include inquiries into police impunity. The most notable step was a pledge to disband the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, known as SARS, a notoriously corrupt unit that critics contend is exactly the type of criminal syndicate it was created to eradicate.

Momentum for the protests has faded in recent weeks. But the protesters’ views have only been reinforced by a government campaign to persecute the leaders of the movement.

Here are the basics of what is happening now in Nigeria, Africa’s largest oil producer and a center of the continent’s economic, social and political trends.

The Special Anti-Robbery Squad was created in 1984 to combat an epidemic of violent crime including robberies, carjackings and kidnappings. While it was credited with having reduced brazen lawlessness in its initial years, the police unit was later accused of becoming a criminal enterprise that acts with impunity. SARS officers were rarely held accountable for their behavior.

In June, Amnesty International issued a report that said it had documented at least 82 cases of torture, ill treatment and extrajudicial executions by SARS officers between January 2017 and May 2020. The victims, Amnesty said, were predominantly men ages 18 to 25 from low-income backgrounds and other vulnerable groups. The Nigerian government’s failure to address this problem, Amnesty said, showed “an absolute disregard for international human rights laws and standards.”

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Police Brutality and the #EndSARS Movement in Nigeria

Spring/summer 2021.

By Oluwole Ojewale

In Nigeria, our policing institution is rooted in command and control, a model handed over to us by our colonial masters, the Western countries that came to colonize Africa. Rather than having a policing system that renders service to the general public, we have a policing system that was established to serve and carry out the directives of the governing elites. Over the span of 60 years, this policing system has not really reformed itself. It still operates based on the template of the Nigeria Police Act that was put in place in 1943. The establishment of the defunct Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) of the Nigeria Police Force drew from the command and control template of the 1943 Police Act. This unit was originally put in place to combat armed robbery, but over the years, it has become an instrument of subjugation and harassment and intimidation, particularly against the youth. The federal government has claimed that they will reform the police, and SARS in particular, but little has changed.

In October 2020, Nigerian youth took to the streets to protest against police brutality in what became the #EndSARS movement. This movement resonated across the world, in the United States of America, in Europe, and in Asia, driven by Nigerians in the diaspora. The #EndSARS movement emerged not only in response to police brutality. It arose from a combination of factors. Youths have been largely marginalized and politically excluded. While they can vote, they are rarely appointed to important political positions. These youths see the governance challenges in Nigeria and want to create change.

The protest calling for the ban of SARS extended beyond issues of human rights violations by the police. It was a larger call for improvement in governance in Nigeria. With the wave of protests against the police, people are saying: We have had enough of this maladministration. We have had enough of this poor governance from the state. And they are actually protesting against the state. Whenever citizens can no longer stand issues of police brutality, what they are saying, in effect, is Enough of this bad governance . We’ve seen this in movements across the world that have risen against police brutality—they are actually protesting against the state. The police institution is just a precursor to that. The police force is the symbol of state authority. The primary responsibility of government is maintenance of law and order, and the police is the institution tasked with the enforcement of law and order in countries around the world.

What police brutality means to an average American citizen, though, is different from what it means to an average African. In the United States, police brutality and subjugation goes along racial lines of Black and white. But in Africa, it’s a matter of a Black police officer oppressing a fellow Black African in Africa. If a Black American citizen is protesting against police brutality in the United States, that protest is undergirded by how the right-wing element, white supremacists, are using policing as a tool to subjugate Black Americans.

In Nigeria, we have Black police officers who have been trained in the ethos and philosophy of colonial policing, which was rooted in subjugation and wanton human rights abuses. After 60 years of independence, we have not been able to shed the legacies of the policing institution, the code of conduct, the philosophy that the colonial masters who came to Africa handed to us. We still have the police institutions that our colonizers built on this culture of subjugation, and these institutions have not reflected the required police reforms that we want to see.

In Nigeria, then, we experience police brutality. But this scourge does not go along racial lines, as it does in the United States. Instead, it is a case of politicians who were elected by community people, by citizens who get into power and then employ police officers who go about oppressing the general public. This becomes a cycle of violence: an average Black person in Nigeria sees the act of wearing a police uniform, holding a gun, holding a baton, and all these other instruments that the police use in carrying out their law enforcement duty as a tool of oppression against a fellow Black person.

The militarization of the police has extended across all facets of governance and facets of our human lives to the extent that elections, which are supposed to be civil affairs, have become so militarized that whenever any election is held, the military services are deployed. All of the relevant law enforcement institutions are also deployed. And as elections degenerate into war, ammunition is deployed just for the basic exercise of franchise, which is the right to vote and to be voted for.

This also extends to public life for politicians. Poor communities in Nigeria are poorly policed. All politicians move around with retinues of police officers who are protecting them and their families. Politicians feel that anywhere they go, they must show that they have the police power to subjugate all other members of the community—wherever they go, they must show that they are in charge. The true taste of power, for a politician, is the ability to control and command the police. The institution of policing has itself become the tool of politicians who want to win elections and subvert the electoral process. In order to access and sustain political power, a person must be in charge of the police. The police force thus becomes an instrument for rigging elections, fomenting violence during the election, and perpetrating all sorts of atrocities.

The global militarization of the police is a fear that plagues every nation. But there is a clear difference between what an American citizen is experiencing and what we experience in Africa. In the United States, policing is enmeshed with white supremacy, whereas in Nigeria or in any other African country, it is a matter of fellow Black African police officers using the tool of the policing institution to oppress their fellow Black people. We must be cognizant of the peculiarities of our cultural and historical contexts in addressing police reform if we are to position the police as a service-oriented agency rather than as a military institution.

This is an edited version of a presentation delivered at the Global Militarization of Police panel at the Fifth Annual Black Religion, Spirituality, and Culture Conference on February 12, 2021.

• Creating a World Beyond Lethal Force
• Policing: War Institution or Public Service?
• Investing in a World That Is Not Yet

Oluwole Ojewale is a scholar and program management expert at the Institute for Security Studies. His research and advocacy campaigns span transnational organized crime, election policing, security governance, and violent conflict in West and Central Africa. His most recent book (with Adegbola Ojo) is Urbanisation and Crime in Nigeria (Palgrave MacMillan, 2019).

Please follow our Commentary Guidelines when engaging in discussion on this site.

Thanks for your scholarly thoughts. Policing shouldn’t be used as tool for oppression as we see in Africa especially Nigeria. Virtually, you can’t see a day without reporting a police brutality. The authoritarian governments given them unnecessary power to dealt with opposition/ or voices criticised the action and inaction of governments. If those in power could see themselves as servant and not ruler, there will be a better police institution to maintain law and order without brutality.

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Nigeria’s police: few promises of reform have been kept a year after #EndSARS protests

Senior lecturer, Obafemi Awolowo University

Disclosure statement

Lanre Ikuteyijo does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

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Police brutality is not unique to Nigeria. The menace is almost universal . It is the level of accountability and transparency in policing that makes the difference in some countries, such as the UK and Canada , which we see as models.

A year ago this month #EndSARS protests erupted in major cities across Nigeria. The protests were sparked by many reported cases of police brutality . The last straw was the video of a man allegedly killed by members of the infamous Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS).

The protests took a deadly turn on 20 October 2020 when security forces opened fire at the Lekki toll gate in Lagos. There were reports that at least 12 people were killed .

The protests did not eliminate police brutality – and they could not have. But they undoubtedly brought to the fore the crudeness of some police officers and the rot which had pervaded the Nigerian police for years.

Some of the major demands of the protesters included the disbandment of the robbery squad, justice for victims of police brutality, and improved welfare of police officers. Incidents of brutality have been reported in the year since then. This has included a report by Amnesty International citing police brutality and human rights violations in south-east Nigeria from January to June 2021.

Incidents in the past year have not been of the same magnitude as those before the protests.

President Muhammadu Buhari took two weeks to respond to the protests, delivering a speech on 22 October. This was two days after the shootings in Lekki .

He made a series of promises. They included: banning the Special Anti-Robbery Squad; bringing erring officers to book; and setting up committees of enquiry in all the states, including the capital city, Abuja.

But many felt his response did not adequately address the issues raised by the protesters. Many were of the opinion that the president deliberately ignored the shootings at Lekki but diverted attention to his poverty alleviation strategies. Others also described the president’s address as grossly unapologetic.

What’s been done, and what’s not been done

The first decision taken in the wake of the protests was the disbanding of the tactical squad .

However, nothing has been heard about erring officers being punished.

Also, not all states went ahead to set up the panels of enquiry. To date, only 26 of the 36 states have panels of enquiry . Nigeria’s human rights commission says noncomplying states do not have funds to set up panels.

The inspector general of police, Usman Alkali Baba, who took up the post in the aftermath of the protests, has taken some action. This has included:

recruiting more police officers to boost the understaffed force

attempting to improve police legitimacy by, for example, dismantling roadblocks across the country

undertaking a nationwide tour of major police formations to boost the morale of officers .

The efficacy or otherwise of these attempts remains debatable.

In addition, rising insecurity in the country due in particular to the activities of bandits and kidnappers has dwarfed the response of government to enhance security across the country. The strategies adopted by the kidnappers included mass abductions of travellers and school children.

The Nigerian government has put in place some plans to fight insecurity including allocation of more funds for the acquisition of arms and ammunition , and partnership with other countries.

These efforts, however, have been derailed by inadequate intelligence and information gathering, corruption and poor funding.

Most government-initiated investigations into the shootings and deaths that occurred during the two-week-long protests have not made much progress. The exception is the Lagos State Government . Independent investigations have been launched by several organisations within and outside the country including Amnesty International, CNN and the International Criminal Court .

Government investigations have stalled for a number of reasons.

Firstly, key players have not come to the party.

The Nigerian Army initially denied the involvement of its troops at the scenes. A week after, it admitted that troops had intervened at the request of the Lagos state government.

Nevertheless it didn’t honour an invitation to attend the inquiry.

On top of this, little has been heard about the activities of the panels set up in each state with the exceptions of Lagos, Delta, and Rivers States. Issues of fairness have also been raised, with complaints that inadequate provision was made for everyone to be represented.

Each of the panels is expected to come up with recommendations. If these aren’t implemented it will amount to a double loss for the petitioners. Not only would they have been unjustly treated by the police but they would also have wasted their time and resources trying to get justice.

Structural barriers

Reforming Nigeria’s police force will take a great deal more effort and commitment than has emerged in the past 12 months.

To begin with there’s the structural problem of the fact that the police force is heavily centralised. States don’t have power over the police. This will clearly have an impact on the outcomes of the different panels that have been set up at state level.

Secondly, if erring police officers aren’t being punished, the panels won’t be able to curb police brutality or ensure justice for victims of brutality.

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#EndSARS isn’t just about police brutality. It’s about the future of Nigeria.

#EndSARS, explained.

by Alex Ward

Tamunoteim Princewill didn’t expect to see a gun pointed at his face.

As his bus entered the Nigerian capital of Abuja in September 2019, members of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) — a federal police unit formed to thwart crime — signaled for it to pull over. An officer demanded money before letting the vehicle pass the arbitrary checkpoint, a practice so common that bus drivers often carry extra cash on them, just in case.

But the driver refused to pay, claiming he had nothing to give. Irate, the officer and his colleagues banged on the bus as some hopped on. One SARS officer, looking for his unjust reward, found Princewill listening to music on his phone and snatched it out of his hand. The 22-year-old complained, saying he’d done nothing wrong.

That’s when Princewill found himself staring down the barrel of a rifle, barked at to be quiet. “I’d seen guns at a distance, but for the first time it was right in my face,” he told me. “A simple pull and I would’ve been gone, far away from home.”

After the officer rummaged through the phone, seemingly finding nothing to his liking, he chucked it over the side of the bridge. Princewill tried to get off the bus to retrieve it, only to have more SARS members point their guns and command him back to his seat.

Ultimately, the police unit coaxed about $25 from the driver before letting the bus go on its way, with passengers — including Princewill — visibly shaken but unharmed. “It took me several months to forget and save enough to get a new phone,” he said. Still, he recognized, it could’ve gone so much worse. “Others have been less fortunate. I know people who have been killed or robbed of so much more.”

It’s this perpetual, decades-long abuse of authority that has thousands of young Nigerians demanding that their government #EndSARS .

For weeks, they have filled the nation’s streets and social media with calls for greater accountability, better governance, and a more equitable society. Despite having enough wealth to improve lives in Africa’s most populous country, the Nigerian state has neglected their needs, experts say, and in many cases made daily existence worse.

It’s why SARS has become the focal point of Nigerians’ anger. The unit’s officers don’t get paid a lot of money, whereas the country’s growing middle class is flush with cash for the taking. SARS officers rob citizens of their possessions, lining their own pockets and enriching their superiors who benefit from such a scheme. In the worst cases, as in the October video that launched the current uprising, SARS officers extrajudicially kill the very Nigerians they’ve sworn to protect.

Now, with global celebrities and US presidential candidates watching, Nigerians aim to do something about it.

“What the protesters have done is they’ve shown the effectiveness of the silent majority to push for change,” said Idayat Hassan, director of the Center for Democracy and Development (CDD), a think tank in Abuja. “A new political movement has emerged, whether the ruling class likes it or not, and a new generation of political leaders has been born.”

Standing in their way is President Muhammadu Buhari, who would rather quash the movement than listen to its demands. In statement after statement , he’s expressed a desire for order instead of reform. Last week, Nigerian security forces fired on demonstrators in the city of Lagos, killing at least 12 people .

“What the government did is lay down a marker: We can kill you and get away with it,” said Matthew Page, a former US intelligence official focused on Nigeria.

The standoff, then, isn’t just about the future of a single police unit. It’s a fight — fueled by a sense of indignation among the nation’s youth — for the future of the country.

“Every generation in Nigeria has had a defining moment in their political consciousness,” said Amaka Anku, who leads the Africa section for the consulting firm Eurasia Group. “This is theirs.”

SARS stagnated as Nigeria developed

To understand the Nigerian public’s animosity toward SARS, you need to understand its rot.

Formed in 1984, the semi-autonomous tactical police team aimed to curb a national upswell in robberies, kidnappings, carjackings, and more . Officers, who roam around in plain clothes and unmarked cars, became particularly ubiquitous in the 1990s amid an uptick in those crimes. And when Nigeria years later had a problem with internet fraudsters known as “ Yahoo boys ,” who used their ill-gotten money to buy cars and laptops, SARS targeted anyone who seemed to be richer than they should be.

Officers learned during this time that they could take people’s possessions and money with impunity, experts said.

Nigeria’s forces became one of the most corrupt in the world . “It’s run like a pyramid scheme: Lower levels have to kick money up the hierarchy to keep their positions,” said Page. “There’s a whole stream of corruption that runs from the bottom and goes to the top.”

Even so, the public generally turned a blind eye to that behavior because they appreciated the harsh crackdown on criminals. At the time, it was quite literally the price worth paying for security.

But then Nigeria changed.

The crime rates of the 1990s dropped (though not dramatically ). Economic growth rates rose , driven in part by a thriving technology sector that fueled an emerging middle class . Information technology and telecommunications grew from about 1 percent of national GDP in 2001 to roughly 10 percent in 2018 , and it’s slightly higher than that now.

As a result, the number of young Nigerians — people under 24 years of age make up about 60 percent of the population — wearing Silicon Valley-style hoodies with cars and laptops grew, too.

SARS, though, had an inculcated culture of profiling and targeting those kinds of people. The unit, experts said, broadly suspected youthful Nigerians with a middle-class living standard of obtaining it illicitly. “If SARS see you as a young person who is successful with a nice car, they will harass you and extort money from you,” an activist told BBC News two weeks ago.

That led to a shift in the public’s relations with the officers. “Now it’s my friends who are in the tech sector getting harassed and getting killed,” Anku said, explaining the general sentiment now. “There’s more of a public consciousness” about what’s going on.

And what’s going on is grim. The human rights group Amnesty International found that SARS perpetrated “at least 82 cases of torture, ill treatment and extra-judicial execution” from January 2017 to May 2020. Not everyone has had negative encounters with the force, but “everybody knows somebody who has had a bad experience with SARS,” CDD’s Hassan told me.

It’s gotten so bad that experts and Nigerian citizens told me few actually want to call the police when something goes wrong. In most cases, the police won’t take care of the situation. What they might do, though, is shake you down for money.

That feeling of distrust is why activists started the #EndSARS campaign in 2017, focusing their attention on one particularly egregious police unit to make a broader point. Nigeria’s government repeatedly promised to disband SARS, but never followed through.

That inaction kept public anger toward SARS and the government at a simmer for three years. But this month, it heated to a raging boil.

#EndSARS goes from an online grievance to a worldwide phenomenon

On October 3, a video surfaced online allegedly showing a SARS officer shooting a young man in southern Nigeria. Even though the person who tweeted the video had only about 800 followers at the time, their tweet got about 10,000 retweets . Others simply linked to the video but typed in #EndSARS.

Nigerians had had personal encounters with SARS and seen horrifying videos like this before, but the timing — in the midst of mass Black Lives Matter demonstrations in the US — and sheer brutality of the images brought tons of attention to the video. “It kind of galvanized the people,” Hassan told me, “and the more people spoke out, the more everyone could align with the grievance.”

Five days later, the public’s grievances moved from the internet to Nigeria’s streets. Thousands rallied in major urban areas, with some in Lagos — the African continent’s most populous city — holding signs demanding “respect for human rights” and “a more equal society.” It was less peaceful in the capital Abuja, as police dispersed a few dozen protesters with tear gas .

Soon, celebrities, encouraged by activists online, lent their support to the movement and called for SARS to be disbanded. Among them was John Boyega, the British Nigerian actor famous for starring in the last three Star Wars films, as well as popular Nigerian musicians Davido and Wizkid.

The online pressure and street demonstrations had an impact: On October 11, Nigeria’s government said it would disband SARS “ WITH IMMEDIATE EFFECT .”

But there were two problems with that. First, as Boyega’s tweet noted, Abuja had promised this before — four times , in fact, since 2017. Second, none of the corrupt SARS officers would be fired. They’d just be relocated to other divisions and teams within Nigeria’s federal police force.

Anger at the tepid changes only grew when the head of police on October 14 announced that SARS would no longer exist, but the Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) team would carry out its duties. In other words, the mistreatment of Nigerian citizens by its police would continue, just by other officers.

Demonstrators weren’t satisfied, and protests have continued since, even in defiance of government-imposed curfews. “Nigerians want their daily experience with the police to tangibly change,” said Page, now at the Chatham House think tank in the UK. “If the institutions don’t function properly, then what’s the point” of those reforms?

Especially if they don’t meet the actual requests of the movement. #EndSARS leaders released their “ five demands ” of the government on October 11, which include disbanding the unit, but also releasing activists from jail, prosecuting poor police conduct, evaluating and retraining officers, and increasing the salary for agents.

But if you ask Nigeria’s government, it’s already done enough. It did pass the 2020 Police Act this year, which, among other things, promises a pay raise for officers. That, in addition to replacing SARS with SWAT, should mollify the crowds, in the government’s view.

It explains why Buhari, Nigeria’s president, feels less of a need to cave to more demands and more of a need to quash the protests. Quickly.

“Law and order” versus #EndSARS

Experts say Buhari is completely out of touch with the movement he’s up against. He comes from the country’s north, a Muslim-majority region that’s heavily securitized due to its problems with terrorism. But the protests are centered in the richer Christian-majority south and its big cities, which is why he has trouble understanding the plight of the people there.

“Buhari is very narrow-minded. He’s not a guy with a capacity to understand a lot beyond his narrow worldview,” said the Eurasia Group’s Anku. “He doesn’t understand the frustration or the context.”

But it’s not just his mental inflexibility, Page said; it’s also how he leads. “This is much more about his imperious and monarchical style of ruling Nigeria,” he told me. “He’s not one to listen to these kinds of complaints and find them valid ... he resents that people are questioning how he or any of his cohort run the country.”

Buhari’s forceful response to the protests is a case in point. On October 15, Nigeria’s army put out a statement warning “all subversive elements and troublemakers” that the nation’s forces would “defend the country and her democracy at all cost.” The military “is ready to fully support the civil authority in whatever capacity to maintain law and order and deal with any situation decisively,” the statement said.

Security forces followed through on that threat five days later. Videos on social media appeared to show gunfire and wounded people at Lagos’s Lekki toll gate . Reports indicate about 12 people died in the altercation, with many more hurt. It’s to date the deadliest incident since the uprising.

The next day, Buhari said he would seek justice for the victims and their families and that his administration would quickly adopt more police reforms.

Activists and experts, though, didn’t buy it.

Page told me that, as of now, there’s no evidence looting and property destruction has happened at the direction of #EndSARS protesters. But elites with ties to the government have likely sponsored gangs to wreak havoc, setting stores and cars on fire while posing as activists.

That would give the government an excuse to crack down hard on the movement.

Buhari made that play quite explicit in a Thursday address to the nation . “I must warn those who have hijacked and misdirected the initial, genuine, and well-intended protest of some of our youths in parts of the country, against the excesses of some members of the now disbanded Special Anti-Robbery Squad,” he said. Because of the violence, “I therefore call on our youths to discontinue protest.”

His words weren’t taken as a sign of willingness to compromise. “The tone and body language of the president in his speech was shockingly harsh, lacking in empathy, and condescending,” Bolarinwa Durojaiye, a Nigerian technology entrepreneur who sides with the protesters, told me. “This administration clearly does not feel more accountable.”

He has a point: Despite condemnations from the United Nations and African Union , Buhari isn’t backing down.

With little chance of deposing Buhari with street protests alone, an uncomfortable question arises: Has #EndSARS failed?

#EndSARS may be winding down, but it’s not going away

In the course of reporting this story, I asked multiple factions within the #EndSARS movement for comment. One, which I won’t name because they declined to comment on the record, explained that “due to recent events, we will be taking [some] downtime.”

It’s pretty clear what the spokesperson was conveying: The government’s use of violence has made activists wary about pushing too hard right now.

It’s a sentiment the Feminist Coalition, one of the pro-movement groups, made evident in a Thursday statement . “The past two weeks have been tough for many Nigerians, most especially the last two days,” they said. “Many lives have been lost and properties destroyed at the height of what started as peaceful marches for the end to police brutality.”

They continued: “Following the President’s address, we hereby encourage all young Nigerians to stay safe, stay home, and observe the mandated curfew in your state.”

Experts said they expect fewer scenes of packed streets in the days ahead. That was always a possible outcome, noted the Eurasia Group’s Anku, since the calls for dismantling SARS didn’t spread to the entirety of the country. They centered mostly in the south’s large cities. “This is a southern phenomenon,” she said. “It’s not enough of a movement.”

But what might happen, she added, is that #EndSARS could turn into an organized political force ahead of the 2023 presidential election. With enough momentum, Nigeria’s youth could defeat a Buhari-aligned politician (he can’t run for a third term) with someone willing to improve the relationship between the government and its people.

“It’s really not just a protest about SARS,” CDD’s Hassan told me. “It’s really about governance.”

It’s why experts believe both the government and activists may step back from a broader confrontation to regroup. There’s a political fight to win, after all.

But the overlying issue — police brutality in Nigeria — still isn’t solved. If another horrifying video surfaces or the police or military kill more people in the weeks ahead, “that may reignite the now seething base of protesters,” said Page.

And if that happens, it won’t just be a political struggle over the next few years. It could be a lethal one, too.

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Youth protests for police reform in Nigeria: What lies ahead for #EndSARS

Subscribe to africa in focus, oluwole ojewale oluwole ojewale enact program’s regional organized crime observatory coordinator for central africa - institute for security studies, dakar, senegal @woleojewale.

October 29, 2020

Over the last two weeks, protests organized around #EndSARS—the mass action calling for a complete ban of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) of the Nigerian police force—has rocked cities across Nigeria. Set up in the mid-1990s to combat incidences of armed robbery, SARS has over the years metamorphosed into a force associated with harassment of innocent citizens, extortion at gunpoint , and extrajudicial killings of suspects.

Drivers and demands of #EndSARS

An overwhelming majority of those participating in the protest are young Nigerians . Notably, Nigeria has a rich history of youth protests: Nigeria’s independence movement even started as a youth protest. The bottled anger of many of the country’s youth over unfair profiling and harassment by SARS in particular has found an outlet in this protest, which started with no defined or any central leadership. The protesters’ demands at the beginning were straightforward: The federal government should abolish SARS, provide justice to victims of police brutality, and reform the police. Now, the demands have widened, premised on the pervasive failure of the government to deliver equitable economic prosperity for its citizens and these enraged youths in particular. In addition to calling for law enforcement agencies to respect the rule of law, youth are demanding more respect for human rights and a deepening of democracy . The protesters are also demanding a revival of the educational and health systems and stronger efforts toward job creation. In short, the message of the #EndSARS protest is that young Nigerians want to take back their country from the entrenched political order that they believe has not served their interests. Indeed, earlier this month, the governor of Lagos State submitted their 7-point agenda to President Buhari on behalf of the protesters .

The discontent among youth was already simmering given the economic crisis sparked by the fall in global oil demand (and compounded by the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic), institutionalized corruption, and state profligacy that have drawn more Nigerians into poverty. The foregoing coincided with eight months of closure of educational institutions due to strikes held by university lecturers , leaving many young people alienated and angry. According to the National Bureau of Statistics , as of the second quarter of 2020, the unemployment rate in Nigeria stood at a staggering 27.1 percent and the underemployment rate at 28.6 percent. Of the 21.7 million unemployed, young people (aged 15 to 34) account for a whopping 34.9 percent. They also account for 28.2 percent of the 22.9 million underemployed Nigerians.

Worsening economic conditions and bleak projections for the future have only fanned the flames. The country has barely recovered from the economic recession that started in 2016, and President Buhari has now called on Nigerians to brace for another recession . Youth were already incensed by reports of high-level elites’ corruption , galloping inflation, and unprecedented levels of unemployment, and now the government has announced increases in the price of fuel and an electricity tariff .

Against this background, the #EndSARS protests have become a symbol for broader resentment and opened the path for marginalized Nigerian youths to vent bottled-up grievances against the government, starting with the excesses of SARS, which the government has failed to address after several promises of reform . Problems with SARS are not new, in fact: Protests against its brutality date back to 2010 , and announcements on disbanding it were first made in 2014 , then again in 2015, 2016, and 2019 . The nonpartisan nature of the #EndSARS protest explains the wider support it enjoyed from the general public, and the successes it recorded.

What comes next for the #EndSARS protests?

Now that the wave of street protests has subsided due to military clampdown on the protesters , how #EndSARS unfolds—both intentionally and unintentionally—depends on its organization and the state’s response. The role of social media in driving the #EndSARS protest is well- documented , but that method comes with risks as the medium often struggles to mitigate fake news that triggers violence and reprisal violence, especially along ethno-religious lines. For example, notable Northerners (largely supporters of Buhari) hold the view that #EndSARS is driven by Southerners looking to discredit Buhari rather than legitimate grievances of the youth. Notably, Northern youth simultaneously have started protests tagged #SecureNorth in order to highlight the grave security challenges in the northern regions of the country . That youth-driven message, however, seems to have been overshadowed by #EndSARS.

There is the risk of the issue being hijacked as well: Many Nigerian politicians have not refrained from exploiting religion and geopolitical tensions for provincial gains, and #EndSARS may provide them another opportunity to do so. Furthermore, hoodlums have taken advantage of the security vacuum created by the # EndSARS protest and the anger that instigated it. The attendant action of jail breaks potentially foreshadows dangers for overall security in the country. In addition, simmering separatist tendencies in some regions and any misplaced response by government could create opportunities for such groups to deepen their rhetoric and mobilization.

Then again, the energy behind the #EndSARS protest suggests the potential for comprehensive police reform and democratic change. The government has yielded to the demands of the #EndSARS protesters by promising to reform the police. However, if the promise of police reform is not significantly pursued by the government ( as has been the trend in the past ), the sustained online protests with trending hashtags might trigger yet another wave of street protests in the days to come.

More importantly, the #EndSARS protest has shown the ingenuity of young Nigerians to organize, and the possibility of translating #EndSARS to a political cause remains very strong. Indeed, about half of the registered voters in Nigeria are aged between 18 and 35 —meaning the youth will hold a lot of electoral sway in the 2023 election, in which case, if they effectively organize, they could topple the current political establishments—both the major parties of the All Progressive Congress and Peoples Democratic Party—and generate genuine democratic change in Nigeria.

The way forward for the government

It is important to recognize that the judicial commissions of inquiry have started seating in various states of the country. However, what will unfold next around #EndSARS largely depends on the willingness of the federal government to investigate the Lekki Tollgate shootings at the #EndSARS protesters in an open and transparent manner, and in good faith.  Concerted efforts by the federal government to address the concerns in the 7-point agenda submitted to Buhari would also boost the trust of the #EndSARS protesters and the supportive Nigerian diaspora.

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Months After Protests, Nigeria Needs Police Accountability

Police violence and impunity—and the necessary solution—reflect global patterns.

By: Emily Cole

Publication Type: Analysis

In Nigeria and more than a dozen nations—the United States, Brazil and Japan are others—public protests erupted in the past year against police brutality. Across the globe, police violence traumatizes the marginalized, spares the powerful and remains unaddressed until the abuse is illuminated to broad public view. While brutality is typically rooted among a minority of officers, it persists because weak systems of police accountability offer impunity, even to repeat offenders. In Nigeria, as in other countries, the solution will require building strong accountability mechanisms—both within police agencies and externally, in the communities they serve.

Four months after Nigerians’ protests against an abusive police unit made international headlines—the problem of police impunity persists. The protests, against the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), went global in October, sweeping Nigerian diaspora communities , and viral, through the hashtag #EndSARS . While the government officially disbanded the SARS unit on October 11, Nigerians say the systemic problem of violent policing remains unresolved, and citizens protested anew this month.

Police Violence and Impunity: a Global Problem

Nigeria’s crisis is decades old and reflects current patterns elsewhere. If police killings had been included in Nigeria’s homicide rate in 2008, the total number of homicides would have shot up 40 percent . In the first two weeks of last year’s initial COVID lockdown, more Nigerians died at the hands of the police for violating curfew than were killed by the virus . As Brazil locked down against COVID last April, 35 percent of all killings in Rio de Janeiro state were by police. In South Africa, killings by police ignited protest . With vastly different security landscapes, recruitment and training, police officers across wealthy and low-income countries alike murder their compatriots at alarming levels when there is no accountability for their crimes.

In Nigeria and other countries, the problem is rooted partly in systems of recruiting, training, promoting and disciplining police officers. Many countries have reformed these systems, often with funding and pressure from international donors. Yet the most fundamental problem is impunity for abuses such as extra-judicial killings, kidnappings, extortion and humiliations of citizens. No fewer than four Nigerian government-commissioned studies over 15 years have highlighted the weaknesses—and the country’s critical need to build stronger internal and external mechanisms to hold abusive officers accountable. The problem has been to muster the political will to actually implement these widely supported policies.

The available data on complaints about police behavior show that impunity opens the door for a small number of officers to commit a disproportionate number of abuses. Over 33 years in Chicago, just 10 percent of officers were the subjects of one-third of all complaints. A strong predictor of whether police officers will abuse suspects and victims of crimes is whether they have done it in the past. Impunity not only allows these few abusive officers to continue their behavior, it lets the behavior spread throughout police units and whole departments. It allows the spread of police cultures that permit and celebrate violence, and even torture. One bad apple really does spoil the bunch.

Worldwide, specialized police units such as Nigeria’s SARS—including anti-drug, anti-gang and anti-terror forces—are more likely to commit abuses against the population and to operate with impunity. Such violence is sometimes enabled or directed by politicians determined to appear “tough on crime”—an element of anti-drug operations in the Philippines and anti-gang operations in Brazil . In violent and divided societies, brutal policing and even extrajudicial killings can win support among populations suffering high crime rates. But this wanes as people feel the cost. Militarized anti-gang or anti-drug units operating outside of regular police hierarchies and oversight strike not only hardened criminals. They also victimize the innocent—primarily people in marginalized, powerless communities.

What Prevents, and What Permits, Solutions?

This relative invisibility of the victims—to the broad population and to those in power—hampers efforts to address police abuses. Brazil’s Afro-Brazilians are policed more often and more violently than their compatriots. Jamaica’s police kill people in what authorities describe, without corroborating evidence, as “shoot outs”—a practice they use almost exclusively in impoverished neighborhoods. Across India , Pakistan and Nepal , that same police tactic is popularly labeled “fake encounters.” In Kenya , human rights organizations and independent monitors record hundreds of killings by police per year, concentrated in the poorest communities.

Protest movements arose when the abuses were dramatized to the broad public, and the powerful, in ways that could not be ignored. Sometimes the dramatization was by viral video evidence, such as the killing of George Floyd in the United States or the execution by officers of Nigeria’s SARS unit of a man in a Lagos street . In Nigeria, it also happened when police targeted people or groups with more political power. The SARS unit became notorious for targeting young people whose cars or dress suggested middle-class wealth. “The police hardly harass the elderly, but once they sight a young man and you maybe have dreads, piercings, or tattoos, you are automatically a ‘Yahoo boy’ [an internet scam artist],” a Nigerian musician, Omah Lay, told Teen Vogue . Police would use such accusations to justify stealing the person’s cellphone or extorting money, Nigerians have recounted to journalists. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime publishes a guidebook for policymakers and police agency leaders on police accountability. “Good policing is policing with legitimacy on the basis of public consent, rather than repression,” the guide notes. The necessary accountability requires internal and external mechanisms to investigate and punish police misconduct, set priorities for policing that address community needs, and root out corruption and abuse. Internal mechanisms—such as systems to allow citizens to safely report police abuses, and independent internal investigations teams or inspectors general to investigate such reports outside the chain of command—are half of the answer. Oversight mechanisms external to the police hierarchy, such as parliamentary oversight and independent civilian review boards, are even more important. They are more likely to dismiss offending officers but must be free of both political and police interference and vetoes.

Opportunities for Action in Nigeria

The Nigerian government initially responded quickly in October to the #EndSARS protests, disbanding the SARS unit and announcing that its members would not be admitted to a newly formed elite police unit . Since then, progress has stalled. As protesters have made clear, it is not time for another study group or commission. While improved laws and regulations to prevent extrajudicial killings and other police misconduct are surely part of a long-term solution, those safeguards that exist in law and policy are not being implemented . The immediate imperative is to gather the political will to implement these policies.

External accountability mechanisms are, however, lacking. Establishing and supporting community accountability for police misconduct will require more investment from Nigeria’s federal and state governments and international security partners. As civil society and outside experts work to build political will for external accountability mechanisms, existing examples demonstrate their effectiveness in Nigeria. In the north-central city of Jos, community-based dialogues and problem-solving workshops supported by USIP have led to significant external accountability for police in a community that previously had seen serious police violence. The Nigeria-based CLEEN Foundation has been working to reduce police violence and increase accountability to communities in Nigeria for decades. The British Council’s Managing Conflict in Nigeria project has taken a similar approach.

As Nigeria works to improve relationships between the police and the communities in which they work, and to repair the damage of decades of abuse, especially from specialized units, policymakers must focus first on ending police impunity. Providing external accountability for specialized units such as SARS can be particularly challenging because they often operate widely, beyond any single community. Oversight by legislatures or special, independent bodies can address impunity and hold these special units accountable to the population and to other parts of the security services. Countries all over the world are facing the same problems. While the final policies may look different from country to country, ensuring that internal and external accountability mechanisms make it first into law and regulation and then into practice is the best way to end impunity.

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In Nigeria, insurgent groups such as Boko Haram use religious extremism as a pretext for their violence — a justification that is often repeated in reporting and analysis on the situation. But many of the country’s religious leaders see this as a harmful narrative that can conflate religious belief with violent conflict, especially when religion can be such a powerful force for peace. Imam Shefiu Abdulkareem Majemu from the Strength in Diversity Development Centre and Major Olimma Adinwenka Nueka of the Ministry of Defence Provost Company discuss how new training for religious actors can help them prevent violent conflict and de-escalate tensions in Nigeria.

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As coups and other setbacks have stymied military-led efforts to stem upheavals in West Africa and the Sahel, a potent new constituency of leaders has just gathered to plan nonviolent strategies to stabilize their own core area of the region: northern Nigeria. In West Africa’s demographic giant, economic crisis is exacerbating intercommunal conflicts, crime and other violence — and Nigeria’s federalism gives vital roles to its states in addressing roots of these problems. Ten recently elected state governors gathered in Washington last month with peacebuilding and development experts, business leaders and senior U.S. officials; they resolved to strengthen and coordinate state-level stabilization strategies — an initiative that international partners should support.

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Gone: The lost victims of Nigeria’s ‘most brutal’ police station

For more than a decade, young men have disappeared or lost their lives at the hands of Awkuzu SARS, a notorious police station in southeastern Nigeria. For victims and their families, it is an arduous road to justice.

Awkuzu, Nigeria – Behind a metal gate on the southern flank of the Enugu-Onitsha Expressway, stands a boxy hay-coloured building set in the dense clay earth of Awkuzu town.

For more than 10 years, it has been at the centre of incredulous tales of torture and extrajudicial killings in this part of southeastern Nigeria’s Anambra State – tales that have spread beyond the region and across the country. Throughout the building’s dark history, blood stained its floors and guttural screams from those detained there rang out deep into the night.

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Today, a gloomy aura hovers over the building as cars and pedestrians pass by.

The building originally belonged to the local chapter of a national political party set up during one of Nigeria’s military regimes in the early 1990s, but was later converted to the local headquarters of the police force’s Special Anti-Robbery Squad ( SARS ). Although SARS was disbanded on October 11, 2020, after nationwide protests against it, the building is still used by the Nigerian Police Force.

Popularly known as “Awkuzu SARS”, people in the area say it was not a normal police station. Some describe it as the most brutal in Nigeria. There is a saying about Awkuzu SARS that captures the station’s chilling reputation: if you’re taken there, you may never come out.

Protesting for her brother

In early October 2020, thousands of young Nigerians began pouring onto streets across the nation to demand the Nigerian government dismantle SARS. Twenty-five-year-old Obianuju Iloanya felt compelled to join them. The NGO worker wanted to speak out for her older brother, Chijioke Iloanya, who was 20 years old when police officers arrested him in November 2012. He was handed over to Awkuzu SARS and has not been seen or heard from since.

Many detained at SARS Awkuzu Anambra state have disappeared. Iloanya Chijioke is one of them. He was last seen in November 2012. #InternationalDayoftheDisappeared #Nigeria #SARS #DSS pic.twitter.com/BhfD181men — Amnesty International Nigeria (@AmnestyNigeria) August 30, 2020

SARS was a tactical police unit created in 1992 following a spate of crimes in Lagos. Before the head of the Nigerian Police Force announced the unit would be dissolved in response to the #EndSARS protests, it had operated in all 36 of Nigeria’s states and in the federal capital, Abuja. Rights groups had long accused it of carrying out unlawful arrests, extortion, rape, torture and murder.

“The police are the true criminals of Nigeria,” Obianuju says, sitting in the corridor of her family’s quaint bungalow set on the edge of a sandy, unpaved road in Anambra State.

Obianuju continues, determined to speak through her frustration. “What is this? What is the worth of human life in Nigeria? What do you have to do to not be killed?”

She marched alongside #EndSARS campaigners in Abuja, where she has lived since 2018 after graduating from university. She stood in front of the crowds shouting “End SARS” into a megaphone. Armed young men later ambushed protesters with clubs and knives.

In horror, Obianuju watched the mob running towards them, clenching their weapons. She also saw government security agents.

“They used water cannons on us while throwing tear gas on us,” she says with a sigh of exasperation. “I was in the eye of the storm and I was really scared. I know the Nigerian government; they don’t play nice.”

But she had already resolved to be there – for Chijioke. At one point, she even laid her body flat in the middle of a street in Abuja’s Asokoro district, directly in front of the headquarters of the Nigerian Police Force.

What happened to Chijioke?

Meanwhile, about 450km (280 miles) south of Abuja, more protesters gathered in Obianuju’s home state of Anambra to condemn the local Awkuzu SARS.

Obianuju grew up in a community less than 25km (15 miles) from the post. Throughout her childhood, she shared a bedroom with her two sisters. But she had a special bond with her older brother Chijioke. The two were so close they told people they were twins. She never imagined her brother would end up inside Awkuzu SARS.

Over the course of three days in November, Al Jazeera met with the Iloanya family – father, Emmanuel; mother, Hope; son, Ebuka; and daughters, Kosisochukwu and Obianuju – in their hometown, where they recounted what had happened to Chijioke.

On the evening of November 29, 2012, Chijioke Iloanya went out to a small party in the courtyard of his friend’s flat to celebrate the birth of the friend’s first child.

He was popular in the community. People knew him by his nickname – 50 Cents, an ironic nod to the American rapper because he was not a huge fan of his music. He was more interested in fashion, with a particular fondness for stylish shoes.

“Chijioke was a shoe guy,” says his older brother, 30-year-old Ebuka, smiling. “He was into Converse, sneakers, sportswear, all-purpose shoes. He even taught me about shoe fashion. He can even dress up on a non-eventful day and just be shining with his shoes.”

That day, he was wearing a sleek pair of dark brown sneakers, a white polo shirt beneath a long-sleeved shirt and jeans.

The party was in the town of Ajali, 40km (25 miles) southeast. At the time, stories about police officers, particularly from SARS, busting into beer parlours, hotels and outdoor gatherings to arrest people were rife.

But Chijioke went out anyway and at about six in the evening, his mother called him on his mobile phone to ask why he was out past the family’s curfew. Hope is a conservative woman who does not like her children out after sunset, and she had good reason to be worried. The streets were not safe. Armed groups were kidnapping people in the oil-rich Niger Delta. Violence between gangsters and cultists led to dead bodies being left on roadsides and fields across the region. Police officers were busting fraudsters for duping people on the internet. Hope, like many parents, was on edge.

Chijioke assured her that he was on his way back home. He was going to hop on a bus, he said. But he never made it to the bus stop.

“That was the last we heard from him,” says Obianuju, shrugging her shoulders. She speaks in a matter-of-fact tone, trying not to cry. “The next thing, we got a call from some guy telling us that the child dedication [party] was raided and that the boys were arrested by the police.”

Officers from the Ajali police station had crashed the event that night, arresting a few people including the landlady of the apartment building and the mother of the newborn child.

The following day, Hope went to the Ajali police station and tried to bail her son out but the officers said she could not because she is a woman. She called her husband. The police prepared to transfer Chijioke to Awkuzu SARS.

“When my dad heard, he got worried because Awkuzu SARS is a terrible place, it’s a very scary place to be,” says Obianuju. “Awkuzu SARS is known for killing young people. It’s very rare for a young person to be arrested by Awkuzu SARS and they’ll be out alive or still complete. You can lose a limb or something before you’re out,” she explains.

Emmanuel, a stout man with a husky voice and a relaxed gait, says he and his wife went to Awkuzu SARS looking for their son that same day, but the authorities told them Chijioke was not there. When Emmanuel and Hope went back the next day, they saw their son being led to a cell. They yelled his name and Chijioke looked at them.

Emmanuel pleaded for the police officers to tell them what their son had done to warrant being arrested.

“But the SARS people chased us out of that place,” he says, adding that the then-commander of Awkuzu SARS, James Nwafor, the chief superintendent of police, pushed his wife.

Emmanuel and Hope went back to the Awkuzu SARS several times that week to speak to Nwafor, Obianuju explains. Nwafor told them that he had already killed their son and there was nothing they could do about it, she says. Hope fainted and Emmanuel took her to the hospital.

“That was what prompted my parents to go to the commissioner of police,” Obianuju says.

The then-commissioner of police of Anambra State, Bala Nasarawa, supervised police activities across the state. Emmanuel says that he and his wife went to see him and told him about what had happened to Chijioke, but nothing came of it.

Emmanuel and Hope tried to believe that Nwafor was bluffing about killing their son and that he was still alive.

“When he disappeared, we went everywhere. We spent everything looking for him,” Hope says. Her face stiff with grief, she speaks at a slow, measured pace, with long pauses. They spent the next few years going to other SARS police posts and seeking help in different states across Nigeria.

They went looking for lawyers who could help them and asked activists to speak out about their case. But they could not get any leads. There was no court hearing. The police never presented an official charge to the Iloanyas and never went to their home to investigate – not even informally.

They heard of former detainees being freed after their families allegedly paid the police.

Ebuka, who says he first started hearing about Awkuzu SARS in around 2007 and for a while was hesitant to even go near the building, is sitting on the edge of an armchair in the living room. His eyes grow wider and his voice gets louder as he says, “When someone you know is being arrested by Awkuzu SARS, if that person comes back it’s a miracle, total miracle.”

So, the Iloanya family started praying for a miracle. But they had to pay for it first.

Emmanuel and Hope struggled to raise money. A part-time real estate agent, Emmanuel sold properties worth at least $90,000, receiving 5 percent commissions on them. He used the funds to pay legal advisers and pastors who promised to pray to God on their behalf for a miracle. They also paid police officers loitering outside the Awkuzu SARS post to go in and find out if Chijioke was there. That never yielded any solid information.

“After paying all these things you realise how much you have spent,” Emmanuel says.

With the financial demands growing ever greater, Emmanuel and Hope could barely cope. Emmanuel began to consider the unthinkable – selling the plot of land where his daughter Peace was buried after she died mysteriously in 2010.

Double tragedy

Emmanuel and Hope have been married for 31 years. Attracted to “her beauty and character”, Emmanuel fell in love with his wife the first time he saw her, he says. He built a modest three-bedroom bungalow in Hope’s hometown in Anambra State. There, they raised their children: Ebuka, Chijioke, Obianuju, Peace and the last born, Kosisochukwu.

They lived a middle-class lifestyle. Hope ran a small canteen on a busy road not too far from the house. She cooked rice dishes and hearty soups for a steady stream of customers. Emmanuel, an electrician, went out to look for work installing and repairing house wiring. They earned just enough money to keep everything going and made sure all their children went to school.

Obianuju and Peace had just returned home from school together one day in March 2010 when Peace started complaining that she was hot. She went outside to splash cool water on her body. But then she started gasping for breath and, all of a sudden, slumped over. She was 13 years old and had no known health problems. Her parents rushed her to a hospital but the medical professionals told them Peace was dead. They did not believe it so they carried her body to another hospital. The health workers there told them the same thing. Emmanuel and Hope took their daughter to a third hospital hoping to hear something different.

But Peace was gone.

They brought her body back home and laid her on the floor. Chijioke was beside her holding her hand. Hope sat praying beside her little girl all night. Emmanuel looked at Peace’s still figure as it grew colder.

“I think that’s the only time I’ve seen him cry,” Obianuju says.

Emmanuel chuckles sadly.

“That was the first time he had lost control as a dad,” she remarks.

“My favourite,” Emmanuel says, remembering how Peace’s face and stature resembled his mother’s. “When she was born, I thought she was a reincarnation of my mother.”

They buried Peace on a plot of land that Emmanuel had inherited from his father.

Hope started seeing a therapist to help her cope with the excruciating pain of losing her daughter.

“I was just recovering from the shock of losing Peace when Chijioke’s case happened,” she says, the corners of her lips turned downwards in a deep frown.

Chijioke’s arrest, two years and eight months after Peace died, threw the family into shock, again, and forced Emmanuel to make a tough choice: sell Peace’s burial ground to pay for Chijioke’s release or find another way to get enough money. Emmanuel brewed over the dilemma and finally decided to sell it for 5 million naira ($31,847) and offered 3 million naira ($19,108) to the police. He says they told him it was not enough.

Emmanuel does not want to say anything more about it. It is a painful topic for him.

“It was a double tragedy,” Obianuju says as tears slip down her cheeks. “Cause it was like we sold Peace to get Chijioke and we didn’t get either.”

Many Nigerians perceive the police force to be the most corrupt institution in the country, according to 2019 reports from a local legal rights advocacy group and Transparency International .

Obianuju says that in Nigeria, justice is bought by the highest bidder.

“Rich people in Nigeria do not have these kinds of tragedies,” she says. Her father grunts in agreement, his thoughts turning to Aliko Dangote, the Nigerian billionaire tycoon and the wealthiest man in Africa.

“If I’m rich like Dangote, nothing will happen to my son,” he says.

A river of bodies

In January 2013, Emmanuel heard about something that stirred his hope – dead bodies in a river.

That month, local communities were abuzz with disturbing news that more than a dozen bodies had been found floating in the Ezu River, a tributary of West Africa’s longest, the Niger.

At the time, police cited at least 18 corpses , but local human rights activists put the number at between 25 and 50. They claimed that Awkuzu SARS was responsible for the deaths, alleging that the victims were suspected to be members of a controversial ethno-nationalist secessionist organisation, known as the Movement For the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), which was calling for the southeastern region to break away from Nigeria and form a new country called Biafra.

MASSOB members, accusing the federal government of historically marginalising southeastern Nigeria and discriminating against people from the region, were being arrested and executed after repeated clashes with police and allegedly attacking officials. The founder had been charged with treason.

Reporters and townspeople flocked to the river to get a glimpse of the decomposing bodies. Emmanuel could think of only one thing: Chijioke.

Emmanuel jumped into his green 1996 Mercedes-Benz 230, started the engine and drove the 10 minutes to the river.

When he got to the muddy bank, other people were there, too, trying to see if they could recognise any of the bodies. Emmanuel took off his shoes and waded into the water. He began flipping over bloated corpses. He did not pay much attention to the faces – they were already rotting. He was looking for a dull scar that Chijioke had on his chest, something like a birthmark.

He wanted his son’s body. He desperately needed a body to put into the ground. He needed the body for closure. The body was essential. His Igbo culture demands a body. He wanted his son’s spirit to rest in peace. He wanted the ancestors to know that he had carried out the proper burial rites. He was looking for his son’s body in a river of decaying bodies, turning over the corpses one by one until there were no more to turn.

Emmanuel left without his son’s body.

A family mourns in silence

With Chijioke gone, the Iloanyas decided to keep his story to themselves. They did not bring it up with people outside the family. Still, some people heard gossip about Chijioke being an armed robber and stopped visiting the family. In Nigeria, families whose loved ones are taken by law enforcement officials often experience a deep shame, even when the person is innocent. There is a stigma associated with having your relative arrested and the Iloanya family felt it.

So they kept quiet, year after year, as Chijioke never came back.

“So you start asking me, ‘How is your brother’? ‘He’s fine.’ ‘Where is he?’ ‘He’s no longer in the country,’” Ebuka says. “That’s what I normally tell people. It’s just a way to tell them to leave me alone.”

They have tried to move on with their lives: go to work, keep the house clean, watch television. But there is sadness and they have each had to find a way to live with it.

For Emmanuel, going out to socialise with people in the neighbourhood helps him.

“Whenever, I’m alone. I’m not comfortable,” he says.

The day the police rejected the money he had offered after selling his daughter’s burial ground, Emmanuel went home with thoughts of regret, hopelessness and frustration tormenting his mind.

Ebuka shared a bedroom with Chijioke for almost 20 years. They went to the same schools. Like millions of Nigerians, they followed the British Premier Football League and Chijioke, a Tottenham fan, used to tease Ebuka whenever Manchester United, his favourite team, lost a game.

“You have a brother and all of a sudden, you don’t have a brother.”

Obianuju says she and Chijioke were always together. They shared secrets. He covered for her whenever she did not do her household chores. Whenever she eats something salty these days, she thinks of Chijioke. He used to sprinkle extra salt on his food. It is these sorts of memories that Obianuju battles with.

She got angry at God, disappointed by Peace’s death and again, for what happened to Chijioke.

“It’s difficult for me to reconcile that with my faith. The Bible says whatever you ask of God, he will do for you … why should I be praying for justice when it should be a basic thing?” she asks. She admits that she turned away from God.

A mother’s despair

Obianuju and Ebuka say that of all the people in the family, it is their mother, Hope, who is having the hardest time.

Hope had finally crawled her way out of misery after Peace died. But what happened to Chijioke pushed her back in. She stopped going to social events and even avoided going to the market because she said people would point or look at her sympathetically.

“I just went inside and locked myself up,” the exhausted 53-year-old explains.

A devout Christian, she searched for God. She continued to go to church, but even there, she would think of Chijioke, who played drums for the church’s band.

Hope went deeper into her spirituality and fell into a frantic ritual of looking for prophets to help bring Chijioke back, taking photographs of Chijioke to altars, paying offerings, fasting and praying for hours at a time. She hopped from one evangelical ministry to another, across states. She went as far as Lagos, Nigeria’s commercial hub more than 500km (310 miles) away, to visit Synagogue Church of All Nations, known across Africa for its charismatic televangelist TB Joshua. Obianuju clenches her jaw and furrows her eyebrows when she remembers this. She believes pastors exploited her mother.

“I took them as frauds. Because there’s no reason why you should be lying to a woman who is looking for her child and you say that you would pray today and in 30 days a miracle would happen,” Obianuju says. “You just take money from her.”

Hope paid less attention to her canteen. At times, she could not muster the strength to go to work, so the business suffered. She is hardly making any profit now and has lost customers. Some days, she shuts down, staying in the house and barely speaking. She is running on auto-pilot: wake up, pray, bathe, make breakfast, maybe go to the shop, maybe not, cook, come back home, sleep. Her face is patched in shadows and fine lines cut into her skin below eyes that weep with sorrow.

Her husband and children are trying to help her. But they do not quite know how.

“Most nights, you wake up and you see her crying,” Ebuka says.

Inside Awkuzu SARS

“Welcome to Hell Fire” was what Justin Nwankwo saw etched on a wall in black paint when he entered Awkuzu SARS.

In August 2013, Nwankwo was arrested from a popular hotel where he worked as a manager, along with the hotel’s owner and some of the staff. Nwafor and his officers had found a gun and two human skulls inside one of the guest rooms. Founded on fears over a 1996 case of an adolescent boy being beheaded in a hotel in a neighbouring state, the police discovery sparked rumours around town that the staff in the hotel were engaged in sacrificial killings.

Nwankwo spent 81 days in Awkuzu SARS, a “human abattoir” he calls it. He says towards the back of the station across the open courtyard, there is a torture hall with odd-looking metallic rings and bars hanging from the walls.

“I was hanged. I was beaten. Guns were sporadically shot around me … they used their boots to hit my scrotum,” he tells Al Jazeera. He saw people shot dead in his cell and heard inmates screaming for their mothers and fathers.

Nwankwo, who is now a university lecturer, said he passed out several times in the torture hall before he was taken to Cell 5, which is behind the counter near the entrance. It is known to be the worst cell.

Nwankwo drew a sketch of what the inside of the station looks like, noting that there are five cells in total. He says Cells 5 and 4 are pitch-black. Cell 3 is adjoined to 4 by a wall. Cell 2 is for women. Detainees in Cell 1 are usually asked to clean up the blood in the torture hall.

When he was released after receiving bail from a high court, he went for a medical checkup which revealed that he had internal bleeding, a ruptured scrotum and infections.

Human rights organisations have documented accounts of torture in Awkuzu SARS that corroborate Nwankwo’s.

The sister of a 27-year-old university student told Amnesty International that when she saw her brother two days after he was taken to Awkuzu SARS, he was limping, looked sick and had injuries on his shoulder, legs and torso. She said he told her that he was beaten, hung from a rope and forced to say that he was an armed robber.

“They took me to the back of the building and tied my hands to the back. They also connected the rope to my legs, leaving me hanging on a suspended iron rod,” a 33-year-old fuel attendant told Amnesty after he was imprisoned for two weeks in Awkuzu SARS in January 2015.

A trader narrated his account to Human Rights Watch: “They brought me out around seven [in the morning] and started tying a tube around my arms from my hand to my shoulder. After six hours they loosened it. They then tied my hands behind my back and put a cane through my arms, put two blocks on my back, and hung me for around two and a half hours.”

Civil rights campaigner Emeka Umeagbalasi of the International Society for Civil Liberties and Rule of Law has studied police brutality in Nigeria for years and attributes it to several factors.

“Crude and unprofessional policing,” he says. “The Nigerian police has continually adopted the policing of the yore, the policing of the Stone Age.” He also blames corruption, describing the Nigerian Police Force as a commercialised institution.

Nkiruka Ugochukwu agrees that police officers in Nigeria are after money. She believes that was why her 32-year-old son, Chimezie, a successful Angola-based businessman, was arrested in 2016 and taken to Awkuzu SARS. He had travelled from Angola back home to Anambra to see her and pay her hospital bill when she was unwell. But, days after he had arrived home, Ugochukwu found out that her son was missing. The police said he was driving a stolen Toyota Sienna minivan, even though an investigation proved that he had legitimately bought the car, Nweke Nweke, a local crime reporter who closely followed the story, tells Al Jazeera.

Ugochukwu, like many parents whose children were taken to Awkuzu SARS, never saw her son again. People have told her that he is dead, but she is not convinced.

“My spirit has not told me that my son is dead,” she says with a firm nod of her head.

Ukamaka Obasi, another mother, knows that all three of her sons are dead. They were allegedly killed in Awkuzu SARS between 2012 and 2014. The oldest, Ebuka, was 20 years old, when he was arrested in June 2012 and accused of being a MASSOB member; Obiora was arrested in August 2013 and accused of being pro-MASSOB. Chibuike, the last one, was accused of armed robbery.

Obasi had called Nweke to help her find out what was going on with her sons. Nweke, who knows his way around the Awkuzu SARS station, went there and saw Chibuike hanging from a rope.

“Somebody [an officer] was upstairs. The boy was down. They [police officers] were drawing him, as if they were drawing water from a well,” Nweke says. He has been on the crime beat for 38 years and has investigated countless cases of police brutality. He says that Obasi’s case is one of the saddest he has ever heard.

When the first of her sons was arrested and confined in Awkuzu SARS’s dreaded Cell 5, Obasi says she went regularly to buy food for him to eat. After about two weeks of going to pay to make sure he got food, one of the officials told her to stop bringing money because he “has travelled”.

“They use the word, ‘travel’. That they have ‘travelled’ him. That’s the language they use. Immediately, once they say they’ve ‘travelled him’, we know [the person is dead]. That’s SARS,” Nweke explains and confirms that officers had also told him, as someone who was following the case, each time one of her sons had died.

Obasi says the same happened with Obiora and again with Chibuike. Each time after she brought money for their food for a few days, an official told her that there was no need to keep coming because the son she was feeding was already dead.

Obasi has no living children now. At night, she says she hears them calling out to her in her dreams. Her husband could not handle the blow of losing all his children and went to his ancestral village to get away from it all, leaving her alone in the city to sell fruit and nuts on the street.

Breaking the silence

The Iloanyas had not spoken in public about Chijioke’s case for years, but in 2019, Obianuju broke the silence.

“I told myself I will no longer be held back by this culture of shame. If it will lose friends for me, then that’s fine. But now, I’m going to talk,” Obianuju explains.

She had just watched When They See Us, the award-winning American crime drama mini-series based on the true story of five innocent teenage boys charged with attacking a woman in New York City. She said the programme triggered her. It premiered in May 2019, and a month later, she went on Twitter to post her very first tweet about Chijioke. It was a six-part thread that would be the first of many.

“November 29th 2012, I got a call that #Sars arrested all the people that went for the child dedication at Ajali that day. Mum told you not to go but you insisted he was your friend’s first child. Where are you brother? We miss you? #WhenTheySeeUs #ENDSARS”

“It’s closure that we want. We simply want to know if Chijioke is alive or dead. If dead, why? We want answers. 7 years is a long while but we won’t stop asking for answers. We won’t lose hope. #WhenTheySeeUs #EndSARS”

In July 2020, James Nwafor, who headed Awkuzu SARS when Chijioke was arrested, posted a tweet about the case. It was the first public statement.

“The name of the deceased suspects are Chijioke Iloanya and Ebuka Okeke. The filling station they robbed is Cabard filling station…”

The Iloanya family said they had never been told that Chijioke had been charged with robbing a petrol station. After years of waiting for some kind of information, Obianuju says she had to accept that her brother could really be dead. But she says Nwafor’s tweet also revealed that her brother may have been a victim of extrajudicial killing, due to Nwafor’s reference to “deceased suspects”.

“It means they were arrested, so what happened after the arrests that they became deceased?” she asks. “My brother was murdered in cold blood without access to justice. He was not given an opportunity to defend himself.”

Nwafor’s message raised more questions. The Iloanya family wants answers. Obianuju has taken charge of leading her family’s quest for justice for Chijioke.

She is not the only one. Across Nigeria, other families are breaking the code of silence. In response to the #EndSARS protests, 29 of Nigeria’s 36 states reportedly announced the creation of judicial panels, inviting the public to submit petitions on police brutality and extrajudicial killings. In Anambra State, to date, more than 310 petitions, including the Iloanyas’, have been submitted to the panel since it opened in mid-October. Nwafor’s name appears multiple times in the majority of them, Chijioke Ifediora, a member of the panel, confirmed to Al Jazeera.

Nwankwo also testified at the panel. He is demanding 50 million naira ($131,578) in compensation as well as a public apology from the Nigerian Police Force and for the state government to officially clear his name.

Nweke, the veteran local crime reporter, hired a lawyer to submit petitions on behalf of Ugochukwu, the mother whose Angola-based son was charged with driving a stolen vehicle, and Obasi, the mother of three sons who died after being taken to Awkuzu SARS.

On November 19, Emmanuel Iloanya appeared before the panel to testify. He told the story of what happened to Chijioke. He is demanding 150 million naira ($395,778) in compensation, but says nothing can ever bring back what he has lost.

“I have spent what this panel can give me, I want justice. Let the government bring these policemen here to tell me what my son did,” he said at the hearing.

The panel summoned Nwafor and the current inspector general of the Nigerian Police Force. Neither of them showed up.

Instead, the police submitted to the panel a document about Chijioke’s case. It stated that after interrogation, Chijioke confessed that he was an armed robber and had escorted police officers to his hideout in January 2013. There, criminals opened fire on the police and Chijioke was struck by a bullet and died in hospital.

The Iloanyas were shocked to hear this new information. “I’m just tired,” Obianuju says.

Nwafor is facing intense public scrutiny. The years of allegations against him are coming to bear.

This Akwuzu SARS unit and their commander should be charged at The Hague with crimes against humanity for the systematic torture and murder of so many innocent people. @amnesty @hrw #EndSarsNow — Gesare Chife (@gechife) October 16, 2020

James Nwafor, we have not forgotten about you. You’re a murderer & you brought sorrow to countless families. You must pay for your crimes. You might be free cos you’re being protected but you’ll never be really free. Arrest & charge him with all other indicted officers #EndSARS pic.twitter.com/uAU6vkz06k — Odogwu (@BigChiefDamian) December 22, 2020

Anambra State residents say he was behind the most heinous abuses carried out at the Awkuzu SARS station when he led it from 2012 to 2018.

When he retired in 2018, the Anambra State government hired him as a security assistant to the governor. At the height of the #EndSARS protests in Anambra, campaigners stood in front of the governor’s office until the incumbent came out and told them that Nwafor’s appointment had been terminated.

Since then, Nwafor has been laying low, away from the public eye. But, people are looking for him. There was a WhatsApp group created to announce a reward for anyone who sights Nwafor. Al Jazeera made numerous attempts to communicate with Nwafor. He responded to say that he could not speak to the press.

Nwankwo describes Nwafor as a “pathological killer”. “He’s nearly insane,” he says, explaining that if Nwafor even touches his gun, it is because he intends to fire it at someone. “He cannot bring out his pistol and [have] it return back without sounding,” he says.

Nweke accuses Nwafor of sending assassins to try to kill him on account of his numerous reports on police brutality.

“A lot of people are afraid of Nwafor,” Ebuka says. “The killing is too much. If it’s just arrests and bailing, people may not actually be talking about it. But it’s the killing and the brutality.”

With Nwafor out of sight, #EndSARS campaigners made their way, en masse, to Awkuzu SARS on October 16. Ebuka was there, surrounded by hundreds of other young people. They came from various parts of Nigeria’s southeastern region, gathering in the Anambra State capital of Awka to commute in convoys for the 35-minute drive to Awkuzu.

Live in Awka, Anambra State. We are not here to joke. Currently on our way to Awkuzu SARS. #EndSARS pic.twitter.com/qPxhCywpCi — Chima Ihueze (@IhuezeMD) October 16, 2020

When they arrived at the station, townspeople went out to join the protesters and their numbers swelled. Music celebrities were also in the crowd along with private security agents to protect the gatherers. For many people, it was the closest they had gotten to the station that they had heard so much about. The campaigners shouted and demanded that someone come out and address them. Their chants of “No More SARS” grew louder and louder until shots rang out.

Right at Awkuzu Sars station. Shots fired but don’t think anyone was hit. Tear gas everywhere. #EndSARS #EndSWAT pic.twitter.com/Pz5guuCqKy — Love of her life (@ChibuikePeters) October 16, 2020

No one was killed, but Awkuzu SARS police officers had come out and started firing . The youngsters ran for their lives. Ebuka went around helping people who had fallen before finally leaving the scene. His mother never wanted him there in the first place.

Steps towards reform?

The #EndSARS protests are considered to be the largest youth-led campaign against the Nigerian Police Force in the country’s history. Young Nigerians galvanised to confront an institution perceived as one of the worst in the world. Nigeria’s police force had the lowest score of 127 countries in a 2016 index that looked at how the police enforce the law, follows due process, deters corruption and is viewed by the public and other factors.

“I think we’ve really witnessed over the last years, deep-seated inaction from the authorities. There’s been no political will to look into this institution,” Anietie Ewang, the Nigeria researcher for Human Rights Watch, told Al Jazeera’s Inside Story .

The government called for psychological evaluations for officers from the now-defunct SARS and created a SWAT police unit.

But the police insist that they, too, are victims, overworked, underpaid and then targeted when armed men took over the streets in the aftermath of October’s #EndSARS protests.

“We came under sordid attacks by some hoodlums and criminal elements. Our stations were attacked and burned. Some were vandalised,” John Abang, the commissioner of police for Anambra State, tells Al Jazeera.

“Some officers paid the supreme price,” he says. “Of course, we’re human. We have parents, too. We have wives, we have cousins, we have nephews.”

The Anambra State police command’s public relations officer, Haruna Mohammed, showed Al Jazeera a gory video on his mobile phone of a man on a motorbike holding the decapitated head of a police officer, who was later identified as Inspector John Okoh, as people rush around him to look at it and snap photos.

Abang, who took over as the state police commissioner in 2019, says he has heard stories about Nwafor but cannot comment on them and trusts that the judicial panel will handle the allegations. However, he credits Awkuzu SARS for tackling violent crime in Anambra State.

“There was a time in this state when kidnapping was a regular occurrence. Every other day, individuals were kidnapped for ransom, some were gruesomely murdered in the bushes even after collecting ransom,” he says, adding that commercial banks used to operate between eight in the morning to one in the afternoon for fear of being robbed.

“But SARS rose to the occasion and today, I can say that for several years now, the issue of kidnapping in Anambra State, like other states in the southeast, has been brought to a very bare minimum.”

Awkuzu SARS is now defunct and the building is in the service of the Anambra State Criminal Investigation Department of the Nigerian Police Force.

Praying for closure

It is about 6.30am on a Sunday morning in November and the Iloanya family is waking up. Emmanuel, Hope, Ebuka, Obianuju and Kosisochukwu shuffle into the living room. They come together to pray. It is a daily family ritual.

Outside, a gentle Harmattan breeze blows around the frame of the small house. The sun has not come up yet and the room is dim. The leather couch cushions sag under sleepy bodies. The family starts with a rhythm, clapping their hands in unison. Then, they sing a spiritual song in the Igbo language:

N’ụtụtụ, eji m ekele ya. N’ihu onyenwe m n’abalị, ka m kwere y ana nkwa. (In the morning, I greet Him. Before my Lord in the night, I promise him.)

Obianuju sits on a couch below the window, keeping her voice low. She has found her way back to God, in her own way. She is now able to spend more time with her family because she no longer has a job back in Abuja. She says she felt that her boss was pressuring her to quit, uncomfortable with Obianuju’s prominence in the #EndSARS movement. Obianuju says she is happy that she left and that on grounds of principle, she refuses to work with someone who opposes her advocacy for her brother. Losing her job is not the only price she is paying for her activism. Like other #EndSARS protesters, she believes the Nigerian federal government is following her.

“They’re now tracking us to kill us,” she says.

One protester told Al Jazeera that government agents ransacked his home and office. Some snuck out of the country. Others found their bank accounts blocked. The Central Bank of Nigeria claims that accounts were being used to “finance terrorism”. Obianuju uses a VPN to browse the internet, travels in secret and when she is back in Abuja, stays with friends. But she says she will be fine. A political science graduate, she is looking for a scholarship to pursue a master’s degree and wants to work in human rights or civic engagement.

After years of never speaking in public about Chijioke, Ebuka finally did. He went to a nighttime candlelight service during the #EndSARS protest where gatherers spoke the names of people who had died.

When the announcer on the stage said “Chijioke Iloanya” hundreds of people responded: “We remember!” Ebuka’s voice wailed above the others, trailing just a little longer. He stood up in front of everyone and told them his brother’s story.

“I don’t know what happened to me that night,” Ebuka says, still overwhelmed with emotions. “I was just saying anything without holding anything back.” He says that night freed him.

Nonetheless, he is still angry and wants to leave Nigeria. After Nigerian soldiers fired shots during an #EndSARS protest in Lagos on October 20, now known as Bloody Tuesday, young Nigerians went on social media to vent their frustration with the government; many said they want to move abroad. Ebuka, a psychology graduate who works as a part-time driver and a DJ, wants to leave as early as possible to “any place that is not Nigeria”.

Emmanuel will stay. His family needs him and he needs them. He says they are “the back of his bone”. He is immensely proud of Obianuju for taking initiative in the family’s journey for justice.

In the morning prayer session, Kosisochukwu sings in a dainty soprano voice, closing her eyes, sitting next to Ebuka. At 20 years old, she is the youngest in the family and has been helping her mother, Hope, in the canteen when not attending university classes. Hope still needs all the support she can get from her family. She says she wants to be strong and healthy, for whenever Chijioke comes back, but at the same time, she is beginning to think that he may really be dead. She just wants closure; they all do.

She is going out more these days. Her children hope it is a sign that she is getting better. The previous day, she went out for a social event, dressed up in a scarlet blouse with gold embroidery and a matching skirt of George fabric. She put on a pair of drop earrings and even cracked a smile when Obianuju stood behind her, plaiting a braid down her back. Mother and daughter looked at the mirror together, sharing a tender moment.

Hope leads the family to recite Psalms 23. “The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want …” And when it is over, Hope, her eyes bloodshot and puffy from crying earlier, does what she does every morning: she says his name.

Chijioke’s face looks down from fading photos leaning on the far wall of the living room above the television set.

Behind the parlour, the sunlight begins to stream into the corridor, pouring light into the dark rooms. One of them is where Chijioke used to sleep. After his arrest, Hope locked up the room and kept everything in its place for when he returned. No one was allowed to go in, except to clean it. She did not want people messing with his stuff, so his bedroom stayed put throughout 2013, 2014.

Then in 2015, Obianuju, Kosisochukwu and Ebuka decided among themselves that it was time to give the room to Kosisochukwu because no one was using it and she needed her own space. But Hope was not ready. So the room remained still from 2016, 2017, 2018. Hope was finally ready to give up the room in 2019. The family started the difficult process of giving away Chijioke’s belongings. They gave them to neighbours, cousins, people in need. His clothes, hats, textbooks – they gave practically everything away. There is hardly anything left of Chijioke’s now, although last month, Obianuju found a plaid shirt and a belt.

His beloved shoes are gone.