A (Re)interpretation of the #Endsars Movement in Nigeria: Evidence from the Niger Delta Region

Abstract

Scholarship that has studied the #EndSARS movement in Nigeria remains scanty. In contributing to debates surrounding the #EndSARS movement, we focus on the Niger Delta region and the effect of the movement on the people. Online interview of 20 participants across the region, reports from Amnesty International, the Human Rights Watch and Facebook posts provided data for the qualitative study. Castells’ ‘network society’ enabled us to explain how youths formed a ‘network of protesters’ to resist a repressive police system. The #EndSARS protest was another opportunity for the Niger Delta youths to express their dissonance with an exclusionary political arrangement.

Keywords

#EndSARS SARS Niger Delta police brutality social movements youths

Introduction

The #EndSARS protest of October 2020 has definitely etched itself tendentiously in Nigeria’s history. Owing to the diverse issues foregrounded in the #EndSARS protest, scholars have engaged the discourse by drawing analytical and theoretical constructs from their scholarly traditions. In this regard, the movement has been studied as a cite utilised by queer Nigerians to express solidarity among themselves (Nwabunnia, 2021); how the social media facilitated the spread and maintained the energy of the movement (Dambo et al., 2021); and how it provided a platform for the oppressed Nigerian youths to resist agelong police brutality and corruption in official circles (Uwazuruike, 2020), among others. Since the majority of these studies have focused on Abuja and Lagos, especially the Lekki Tollgate shootings, it will be interesting to go the opposite direction by focusing on other parts of Nigeria where the movement also took place. In this article, we focus on the Niger Delta region on the basis that the region is no stranger to social movements and that the Niger Delta protest is only a tributary to the main movement.

Nigeria had begun 2020 with the threat of the novel strain of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV2).¹ The country contended with the negative effects of COVID-19 pandemic on the everyday life experiences of the Nigerian (Ajibo, 2020; Obioma et al., 2020). Nigerians were hard-hit by the pandemic in the socio-economic sphere, and economic activities experienced a massive shock. This shock heightened the rate at which many Nigerians, especially the youth population, lost their means of livelihood (Oseni et al., 2020). Their quests to seek survival alternatives forced them to the streets. This led to their violation of the lockdown regulation which was intended to curtail the spread of the virus. Mandated by the Nigerian governments to ensure that Nigerians observed the lockdown and other COVID-19 regulations, security agents rather ended up in violating human rights. Reports of police brutality among other concerns were rife during the period. This is because for the average Nigerian police, every situation is a money-spinning opportunity. Utomi (2020) notes that security agents had killed more Nigerians than the COVID-19 pandemic itself.

Despite the raving pandemic, cases of police brutality and human rights abuses reached an unbearable tempo. Unable to bear it any longer, ‘celebrities and activists rallied for support on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, and it did not take long for a massive protest to register itself in Nigeria’s history’ (Uwazuruike, 2020). What is now known as the #EndSARS movement was specifically targeted at the Special Anti-Robbery Squad unit of Nigeria’s Police Force (hereafter SARS) because SARS had extrajudicially killed unarmed youths across many parts of the county (Malumfashi, 2020). This study, therefore, interrogates the involvement of Niger Delta youths during the protest to illuminate the dominant issues that emerged and how the issues contributed in snowballing the energy of the movement. In this regard, the study seeks to answer questions such as the following: how did the Niger Delta youths respond to the protest in their region, and how did their responses further the struggle against SARS’ overbearingness? What would one consider as the major grievances of the Niger Delta youths, and how well did the protest provide an avenue for the expression of their complaints?

SARS, regarded by many as the most dreaded anti-crime unit of the Nigeria Police Force, came into existence in 1992 at the instance of a retired Commissioner of Police, Simeon Danladi Midenda. He added ‘special’ to the already existing Anti-Robbery Squad (ARS) that took form in 1984. The ARS was officially established to handle violent crimes across Nigeria (Nnadozie, 2017; Okogba, 2017) at a time a violent armed robbery gang led by Lawrence Anini terrorised the country (Jimoh, 2014). SARS was mandated to detain, interrogate and investigate armed robbery cases, kidnapping and other violent crimes (Paquette, 2020). Overtime, reports suggesting that SARS had begun to abuse their power became a daily discourse in the country (Abiodun et al., 2020). Iwuoha and Aniche (2021) corroborate, ‘SARS began to overstep the bounds of its duties by arresting those who are alleged to be involved in non-violent crimes such as economic fraud which is under the purvey of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC)’ (p. 2). SARS became a nightmare for many youths; it became criminal for a male youth to be rich even when the person is gainfully employed. Frustrated by incessant SARS’ intimidation, brutality and abuse as they struggled to eek a living, the Nigerian youths amid the on-going COVID-19 pandemic decided that it was time to put an end to SARS’ viciousness.

There was hardly a section of Nigeria where the youths have not witnessed horrendous dehumanisation by SARS (Human Rights Watch, 2005). Amnesty International (2009) Nigeria had stated that

extrajudicial executions, other unlawful killings and enforced disappearances by the police are widespread and go largely uninvestigated and unpunished . . . while there is no conclusive information on the actual scale of extrajudicial executions, hundreds of people, at least, are extrajudicially executed by the police every year.

Validating Amnesty International, Nwabunnia (2021) avers, ‘SARS operated as a state-sanctioned terrorist organisation that had for decades been accused of harassment, murder, and rape’ (p. 352). Other arm-carrying security agents have also been involved in extrajudicial killings, rapes and other forms of crime against Nigerians. However, SARS is noted to be the worst perpetrators of such unlawful activities (Amnesty International, 2020). In this article, we (re)interpret the trajectory of the #EndSARS protest against police brutality, focusing on the Niger Delta region. We contend that so far as the region is concerned, social movements have been a constituent aspect of the people’s existence. The difference is that these movements continue to change form and pattern.

A geo-spatial description of the Niger Delta

The geo-spatial entity known as the Niger Delta is among the most controversial spaces to define because ‘its delineation has been a subject of much political and economic consideration since British colonialism in Nigeria’ (Inyabri, 2014: 74). Geographically, ‘the region [is] bounded by the Benin River on the West and the Cross River in the East’ and stretches up to ‘the coastal area where the Cameroon Mountains dip into the sea’ (Dike, 1956:19). Dike’s mapping of the region, argues Inyabri (2014), ‘can be traced from Benin to Cross River and covers nine states, namely, Abia, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Cross River, Delta, Edo, Imo, Ondo and Rivers’ (p. 73). While the Nigerian Niger Delta is noted as one of the most ‘resource-rich regions in the world, the region has continued to remain mired in cycles of conflicts that perpetuate underdevelopment and threaten human security’ (Taft and Haken, 2021), with no end in sight. As used in this article, the Niger Delta describes the oil-producing states as captured by the mappings of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NNDC). These states are considered Niger Delta states because ‘possession of oil has made Ondo Abia and Imo to share same environmental properties and form a continuum with the original notion of the Niger Delta’ (Akpan, 2011: 8). Collectively, the Niger Delta region spans a landmass of over 70,000 km (27,000 sq mi), making up about 7.5% of the total landmass of Nigeria (Akporaro, 2008; Balouga, 2009).

The Niger Delta region was reported to have about 31 million inhabitants comprising more than 40 ethnic nationalities, the majority of which include the Bini, Ibibio, Igbo, Itshekiri, Esan, Ijaw, Annang, Ikwerre, Ukwuani, Isoko, Ogoni, Etche Abua/Odual, Kalabari, Okrika, Obolo, Yoruba, Efik, Oron and so on (2006 Census). Besides the Bini and Yoruba people, many of the above-mentioned ethnic groups and others had existed collectively as single geo-political units during the colonial and early post-colonial era under what was known as the Eastern Region of Nigeria. This was between 1954 and 1967 when General Yakubu Gowon broke the Western, Eastern, Northern and Mid-western regions into 12 states (Ojukwu and Oluwole, 2016). The state creation was to pacify ethnic nationalities who had agitated for their own states (Abia, 2002; Ina, 2017). The eastern region was split into Rivers, South-eastern and East-central States. Nonetheless, the Niger Delta has continued to be engulfed in a series of development crises given the massive exploitation of its natural resources, wide range of land degradations, water pollution and the apparent absence of human and infrastructural development to commensurate the region’s enormous contribution to the nation’s economic profile (Moro, 2008).

Theory and methodology

Since the #EndSARS movement first started as a virtual protest, Castells’ ‘network society’ is considered as the appropriate theory to drive the analysis. Castells’ concept of ‘network society’ can enhance understanding of how Nigerian youths networked and resisted their oppressors. Castells describes ‘network’ as a set of interconnected nodes and argues that the prospect of change and domination indicates how people’s search for meaningfulness can trigger various forms of networking and social movements. Castells’ vision of the social agency as an analytic counterpart for the social structure in the age of information can be expressed with the words identity, identity policy and new social movements. The new social movement primacy is given to a different kind of category of social agency: identity and identity-based movements. Identification as such is a historical and a universal socio-psychological phenomenon but rises to the centre of social change and change-making. Castells insists this is the true meaning of the primacy of identity politics in the network society.

One of the outstanding modes of Castells’ theorisation is resistance identity. Resistance identity formation has the traces of grassroots at the level of collective identity formation that does not mobilise itself within the civil society. Rather, it works as a community-building network which brings together the excluded, the stigmatised and the anguished to gain a collective experience that gathering around a common meaning can offer. This level of experiencing is characterised by commune-building and resistance against the surrounding society and against other communes. In applying Castells’ insights to the analysis of the #EndSARS movement, we are unearthing how the African sense of community gave the struggle its impetus. Mbiti (1969) explains this ideology in which community is essential to subjectivity. An individual is incomplete unless they maintain an active connection with the society they are a part of. The protesters saw themselves as members of a dehumanised commune who are fighting a common enemy.

Resistance is the most influential identity category of the present age because societies would not stop and stay in their fragmentation. The #EndSARS protest draws attention to the ways the dominated commune, the Nigerian youths, networked and resisted the dominant identity, the Nigerian government and SARS. What this means is that although the youths encountered difficulties in negating the symbolic power of SARS, they symbolically resisted SARS by adopting practices which outsmarted the brutal, unintelligent SARS.

Our methodology is qualitative. We purposively selected our 20 interviewees from the nine Niger Delta states. The participants (12 males and 8 females) were duly informed that their views will be used for research purpose only; participants’ names have been anonymised. The age bracket of the participants is 20–40 years; they are 10 university students (6 undergraduate and 4 postgraduate), 4 university lecturers, 2 lawyers, 1 musician, 1 footballer and 2 civil servants. These participants were considered suitable for this research because they witnessed the #EndSARS and participated in the protest. Thus, ‘their presence is a critical part of their activism and resistance’ (Nwabunnia, 2021: 353).

The social media has become a critical space for activism and resistance (Dambo et al., 2021; Inyabri et al., 2021). The continuing squabble between the Nigerian government and Twitter testifies to the power of expression the social media offers the Nigerian youth. Facebook played an essential role in spreading and sustaining the #EndSARS movement. Our data were also elicited from Facebook posts and comments and were complimented by reports from Amnesty International and the Human Rights Watch.

Old wine in a new bottle: historising social movements in the Niger Delta

The #EndSARS movement was only among the numerous social movements the Niger Delta region has experienced (Uchendu, 2020). Prior to the 2020 #EndSARS movement, the region and its people recorded some events that could be classified as critical social movements. Some of these include the historic 1885 Akassa Raid (in present-day Bayelsa State), the 1929 Women’s War (across Old Eastern Nigeria), 1898 Bini Expedition (present-day Edo State), 1951 Blood Men Revolt in Duke Town (Calabar, Cross River State) and post-colonial resistances such as the 12-day revolution by Isaac Jasper Adaka Boro and others who wanted to break away from Eastern Nigeria because of alleged marginalisation of the Ogoni (and her riverine neighbours all in present-day Rivers and Bayelsa States) by the then Igbo and Ibibio-led Eastern Region Government. The murder of Ken Saro-Wiwa and the eight Ogoni chiefs in 1995 by General Sani Abacha marked a remarkable water shed in the history of social movements in the region (Campbell, 2002). Organised ethnic movements such as the Ijaw National Congress (INC) and Movement for the Survival of Ogoni People, among others, emerged after the killing of Saro-Wiwa. These groups have been involved in various forms of social movements against the Nigerian government on resource control issues.

Studies by Dike (1956), Tamuno (1970a, 1970b), Ikime (1972) and Alagoa (1972) have recorded these social movements. Dike’s study, for example, considered as one of the very first indigenous historical narrative that critically unearths the link between the political, cultural, economic and social movements within the Niger Delta remains the most consulted literature. Indeed, the work proves that what transpired today in the region as social movements took roots in the pre-colonial and colonial events that shaped and reshaped the region to what it has turned out to be. Dike argues that just as crude oil has been a major factor within the conflict-ridden Niger Delta in post-colonial era, so was palm oil a major source of the many resistances by the indigenous people against the then British colonialists. Similarly, Ikime (1972) accounts for the seemingly, endless insurrections put up by the people against the forces of colonisation which undermined the people’s pursuit for sociopolitical control of their resources.

Going beyond the argument of (crude or palm) oil as a factor that precipitated social movements, the 1929 Women’s War revealed how women and to some extent men in several towns and villages across the Niger Delta, resisted the imposition of outrageous taxes that negatively affected the people’s economic well-being. It is instructive to note that the Women’s War of 1929 brought massive changes not only in the economic domain but also in the sociopolitical arrangement in that the Warrant Chief system saw its end (Afigbo, 1972; Hanna, 1982 [1981]; Mba, 1982). The uprising forced the colonial government to review tax policies. The women’s struggle was monumental because 1929 was the Great Depression, which had negative consequences on global economies, especially the colonies (Ochonu, 2006). However, the search and subsequent exploration of crude oil in southern Nigeria between 1903 and 1958 (Steyn, 2009), marked the beginning of a new phase of social dislocations. Steyn (2009) shows that even during colonial heydays and search for crude oil across southern Nigeria, the people put up numerous resistances against colonial ordinances. Nonetheless, since ‘oil of commercial quantity and quality was finally discovered by Shell/D’Acry at Oloibiri, situated 72 km west of Port Harcourt (at a depth of 12,008 feet)’ (Steyn, 2009: 266), and in many other parts of the Niger Delta, the region has been fraught with social vices such as wars, kidnappings and armed robbery. These human rights agitations are fuelled by high-level environmental degradation, lack of infrastructural development and outright exploitation of the people (Ogbogbo, 2005b).

Boro’s study, The twelve day revolution, is among the most illustrative and elaborate contribution to the Niger Delta resource control struggles. The study historises how social movements in the region draw impetus from ethnic consciousness. Boro had spearheaded a secessionist movement from the Eastern region of Nigeria on the argument that the Ijaw people and other minority ethnic groups were deprived of the benefits that accrue from the exploration of oil from their land (Omotola, 2009). Cyril and Oriola (2021) argue that the unsettled disputes that occurred some decades ago are responsible for the recent social movements in the region in recent times. Ogbogbo (2005a) explores the dynamics of conflicts in the Niger Delta cutting through the pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial periods. His ideation on the nexus of oil, environmental degradation and recurring social movements are quite remarkable because over the years, such ideas have triggered further scholarly engagement with the region. Ikimi (1969) scrutinises the unending conflictual dialogues between the various ethnic nationalities that make up the region since the pre-colonial era. The study provides a historical narrative on the nature, nuances and consequences of such rivalries over the years.

A critical examination of the aforementioned literature illuminates how the Niger Delta is no stranger to social movements. Since the 1885 Akassa Raid, the region’s history has been dotted by various forms of unrests. However, while conflict remains a constant variable in any human society, the causes and consequences differ from society to society. Unlike during the 1885 Akassa Raid in which palm oil was the major issue that occasioned the conflict in that era, crude oil has changed the narrative of conflict in the region. Beyond the question of oil, the #EndSARS protest is another violent tributary in the history of social movements in the Niger Delta.

The #EndSARS protest in the Niger Delta: a synthesis of reports

The 2020 #EndSARS protest has both remote and immediate causes. The remote cause is the accumulation of countless abuses Nigerian youths suffered in the hands of SARS. The immediate cause is the brutalisation of young Nigerians during the COVID-19 lockdown. Consequently, ‘peaceful [#EndSARS] protest against police brutality began on October 8, 2020 after a video allegedly showing a SAR [sic] operative killing a man was widely shared online’ (Dark, 2020). This was in addition to several videos that had earlier been circulated months and years before 8 October 2020. In these reports and live videos, many Nigerians saw the intimidation, dehumanisation and brutalisation of young Nigerians who are about their genuine means of survival by SARS. As a result, when the youths (especially those considered as social media influencers) could no longer stomach such aberration, they staged one of the most coordinated and massive protests in the Millennia against a structured, repressive Nigerian system. While the protest was carried out physically, Nigerians abroad remained faithful to the movement through their social media handles (Dambo et al., 2021; Dark, 2020).² The role of the social media, right from the Arab Spring to the #EndSARS protest, is quite conspicuous. The manner in which the protest started, spread and got sustained would not have happened but for the social media.

Apart from the aforesaid, these grievances were reinforced by the fact that several cases of extrajudicial killings by SARS have not been handled in a manner that showed that justice was served. Despite calls by Nigerians to reform the police, to address cases of injustices meted on Nigerians by SARS, the Nigerian government characteristically turned a blind eye to the continuing dehumanisation of her indigents. Regrettably, the highhandedness continued and even worsened during the harrowing COVID-19 regime.

Nigerian government’s loud silence over cases of police brutality propelled the youths to take the protest beyond the social media space to the streets. Major landmarks in Lagos State and Abuja (Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory) were occupied. At this point, the citizenry expected the government to make some soothing statements that would straighten ruffled feathers. As it is with the Nigerian government, nothing was neither said nor done to pacify tempers that were already at their fringes. It may be recalled that before the youths began to occupy major streets and landmarks across most parts of Nigeria, hashtags such as #EndSARS and #EndPoliceBrutality had occupied social media spaces.³ But as the protest garnered momentum, hashtags such as #EndBadGovernance, #EndCorruptionInNigeria, among others, began to surface.

Through a ‘networking of protesters’, the #EndSARS movement simultaneously kicked off in Lagos and Abuja with outstanding responses from youths. The protest gained a higher verve when Nigerian celebrities participated in the protest either physically or through their verified Instagram handles. This collective struggle and networking have been styled the Soro Soke⁴ ideology (a Yoruba expression which translates to speak louder). The Soro Soke ideology became the idiom that energised the protest. It was the syntax that broke the untainted religious and ethnic sentiments that have befuddled Nigeria. It enabled the youths to see one another as Nigerians who are responding to an establishment that has over the years excluded them from national power and economy. In so doing, a nationalistic ideology was birthed through a language practice that spoke to the Nigerianness of the protesters. It is quite intriguing, and perhaps amusing even ironic, to see that the construction of national identity comes from youths who have been calculatingly barred from the governance of their country by a structured cabal of generational rulers. The youths, while in a movement against police brutality and organised subjugation by the political class, were also involved in constructing ‘a pan-Naija’ identity (Fasan, 2015:10). The Yoruba expression became the syntax that enabled a connective relation among the protesters; it evolved a nationalistic ideology where physical and virtual connectivity among the protesters resisted ethnic and religious attachments that have hindered Nigeria’s progress over the years.

Across the Niger Delta, youths took to the streets in solidarity with youths from other parts of the country against police brutality. From Rivers through Akwa Ibom, Abia, Ondo, Cross River, Delta, Edo to Imo States,⁵ the atmosphere was generally similar. The street protests and scenarios that emerged from Rivers and Edo States were intense and troubling. In Rivers, it was reported that members of Vikings Confraternity equally participated in the protest that took place in Port Harcourt. Our interviewees narrated how the protest attracted cult gangs because many of them had in time past tasted SARS’ imperiousness. There were also reports of missing persons, whose whereabouts up to the time of writing this article are yet to be known.⁶ Raged by these painful memories, the protesters took a brutal gaze at the police across the Garden City.⁷

In Akwa Ibom, the protest was at the initial stage described as peaceful, especially as the state governor –Udom Gabriel Emmanuel – reached out to the protesting youths, showing moral support (Bankole, 2020). Later, it was reported that the protest was ‘bought over’ by the state government to discourage the youths from furthering their quest for justice. Initially, the idea that the state government had bought over the protest from the supposed leaders of the protesting youths had come up as mere allegation. However, few days later evidence emerged to corroborate the claim that some people who had posed as leaders of the protest were paid 4 million naira. Unexpectedly, Mr Kufre Carter (Ukpong, 2020), an on-air personality with XL 106.9 FM, Uyo, who had earlier been incarcerated by Udom Emmanuel’s led administration for alleged character defamation of Dr Dominic Ukpong, the Akwa Ibom State Commissioner for Health, got 500,000 naira from the said 4 million naira. After public outcry from the youths, Mr Carter confessed his culpability via his Facebook handle, asking the youths to forgive him (Odunsi, 2020a, 2020b; Olasupo, 2020).

Mr Carter was not the only one who betrayed the youths during the #EndSARS protest. One Barr Ndifreke Inyangette was also alleged to have collected the sum of 1 million naira out of the 4 million that was handed out by Mr Iwaudofia, Special Assistant to the Governor on Youths, at Eni Stores along Oron Road, Uyo (Ukpong, 2020). One of our participants recounted how Barr Inyangette gave the impression that he was going to use his own share of the money to secure the release of youths who were unlawfully detained by the police. Unlike Carter, Inyangette neither refuted nor tendered any apology to the public. Carter and Inyangette’s conduct betrayed the trust of the youths, especially when the ‘youths had fought for Kufre’s release when he was detained by the state government earlier this year [2020]’ (Oyimiso, 2020).

The Edo State scenario recorded a well-executed protest. There were instances of clashes between the police and some youths (Egbejule, 2020). The clash did not deter the youths from joining their compatriots in other parts of the country in questioning police brutality and extrajudicial killings. The protest in Edo also served as an avenue for rival cults to settle old scores because cases of cult clashes filtered the news, and gory images saturated the Internet. The #EndSARS movement was sustained despite the cult clashes. During the protest, some ‘protesters break Benin prisons, [and] free inmates’ (Omobude, 2020).

Imo, Ondo and Abia States also had their youths flooding the streets to put an end to police brutality. As the protest thickened, social media platforms continued to spread the actions taken by the youths, and instances of how the police sustained its brutality in the guise of dispersing the protesters from the streets were also captured. Unknown to the police, the use of force rather than discouraging the youths emboldened them; the youths articulated their determination by sleeping on the streets and blocking major roads.

After series of attacks on the #EndSARS protesters by the police, and when the police failed to control the protesters, the military was sent to the streets. A BBC investigative journalist reported that on 20 October 2020, the Nigerian Army deployed some soldiers to Lekki Tollgate in Lagos. The soldiers, it was reported, shot and killed peaceful and unarmed protesters. It is expedient to mention that instead of contending the rising violence in an intelligent manner, the Nigerian government rather resorted to violence. Although prior to this catastrophic event the Lagos State Governor, Jide Sanwolu, had declared a curfew that was to begin by 4 pm on the day the military struck, the curfew was later extended to 7:00 pm. The extension of the curfew span was to cover workers and commuters who might not get to their destinations before 4:00 pm. Unfortunately, between the hours of 6:30 pm and 7:00 pm, things took a different turn. Video footages of the military shooting the protesters at the Lekki Tollgate were distributed all over the social media.

Although the video footage was earlier denied by the Lagos State Government, the Federal Government and the Nigerian Army, a video footage released by the Cable News Network (CNN) proved that the Nigerian Army had arrived at the Lekki Tollgate between 6:30 pm and 7:00 pm on the said day and had opened fire at unarmed civilians (Oluwole, 2020). With the camera at the Tollgate disabled earlier in the day and lightings around the Tollgate put off, it was not clear what the military did until live streaming video from DJ Switch’s Instagram handle recorded massive military assault on unarmed youths (Haynes, 2020). The ripple effect of the Lekki shootings inspired youths in many parts of Nigeria, especially the Niger Delta, to react violently. This reaction threatened the security apparatus of Nigeria, as illustrated in the succeeding segment of this article.

Counting the consequences

Nigeria’s government attempt to sabotage the #EndSARS protest through military action at the Lekki Tollgate on 20 October 2020 proved disastrous and left a dent on the military’s public face. The security implication that followed the failed attempt left many cracks in Nigeria’s security architecture. Scholars have argued against boots on the ground while trying to tame internal dissidents because rather than solve the problem, such a strategy had in time past escalated violence (Akpan, 2013). Akpan’s position recreated itself during the Lekki shootings. As news of the shootings spread, the military denied sending its soldiers to Lekki. This is despite the fact that the men who were seen shooting at the protesters were handling Nigerian military rifles and paraphernalia. On the contrary, video clips that emerged challenged the military’s claim. This rebuttal was substantiated by the video released by one Miss Obianuju Catherine Udeh, popularly known as DJ Switch (Haynes, 2020).

Placing the Niger Delta in perspective, the reactions of many youths in the region were both unsurprising and problematic. It is not surprising because social movements in the region have been part of the people’s history. In solidarity with their counterparts in Lagos State, Delta youths took to the streets to vent their anger. The protest after the Lekki shooting was rather violent. It is expedient to mention that Nigeria’s police unprofessionalism and the military in conjunction with government’s blatant disregard for the rule of law led to extrajudicial killing of many and brought about violent responses from Nigerians. In Cross River State, for instance, reactions from the protesting youths were ferocious. Youths took to the streets of Calabar, wielding weapons. As they marched on, some of them with ulterior motives took advantage of the movement to cause confusion in the state; they attacked government properties and residences of government officials and appointees (Uchechukwu, 2020; Yakubu, 2020). It has been claimed that those who carried out those attacks were hoodlums who hijacked the peaceful protest.⁸

A critical interrogation of the Cross River post–Lekki Tollgate protest will provide insights into how it differs from other Niger Delta states. Unlike Akwa Ibom, Edo, Rivers, Delta and Bayelsa States where the violent responses that characterised the movements were felt by both the elite and the masses, the youths in Cross River vented their anger mostly against the establishment. For example, the youths had been upset by Prof. Ben Ayade’s, the governor of Cross River, poor performance in office. Asked about the governor’s performance, our participant recounted, ‘He has done wonderfully woefully’. The destruction of Gershom Bassey’s, the senator representing Cross River Southern Senatorial District and Mr Liyel Imoke’s, immediate past governor of Cross River, homes and properties was the protesters’ own ways of resisting the duo for their critical involvement in the emergence of Ayade as Cross River’s governor. Ayade’s property and those of his family members were not spared. His fuel station situated at the Muritala Mohammed High Way, Calabar was vandalised and almost set ablaze but for the intervention of the military that were dispatched to the streets. His relatives’ houses, located in the Cross River State Water Board premises, a place locals regard as the New Billionaire Quarters, were not spared vandalisation.

Apart from the massive and well-coordinated vandalisation of government’s establishments and institutions in Calabar, and the looting of government’s storehouses and silos, the youths also visited their anger on Mr Victor Ndoma. Victor Ndoma, a three-time member of Nigeria’s Senate, representing Cross River Central Senatorial District had not been in the good books of the youths. The youths expected a lot from him because they played critical roles in his emergence as a senator. They felt let down because of Ndoma’s inability to reach out to them. They were also disturbed that, despite being in the position to help, the senator failed to help his people. His house was burnt, cars destroyed and properties looted.

Our participant told us that politicians came under severe attack because the attackers felt that politicians are responsible for their hardship.⁹ Our participant in Calabar explain that the youths were on a revenge mission. Unlike the properties of Gershom Bassey, Liyel Imoke and Victor Ndoma (key political actors of Cross River) that were vandalised and looted, the youths in Calabar South rather protected and deterred others from vandalising Essien Aye’s (a member of the House of Representatives) property. Essien Aye has been described as ‘a man of the people’ because he reaches out to the youths. Noting the dimension the protest was taking and fearing it would escalate to the extent of involving human lives, the former governor Donald Duke and a former Senator Florence Ita-Giwa, popularly referred to as Mama Bakassi, swung into action and made the youths shield their swords. It was the intervention that put an end to the attacks that were already ravaging Calabar.

Akwa Ibom, a neighbouring state with Cross River, had its own episode of what transpired after the Lekki massacre. A large fraction of the protest took place in the state capital, Uyo. Uyo was swiftly engulfed in what could be described as anarchy. The difference between protest in Akwa Ibom State and the other Niger Delta states was that the majority of those (youths/hoodlums) who took to the streets of Uyo did so on 22 October 2020 when it was reported that some men of the Nigeria Correctional Service (NCS) had opened fire on protesters in defence of their vehicle that contained some prison inmates (Anthony, 2020). It was reported that the protesting youths had staged a blockade, preventing the truck from moving on. Scared that the youths were going to free the prisoners, the NCS men fired at the protesters, killing two in the process (Udonquak, 2020).¹⁰ Following the killing of the two protesters, the protest metamorphosed to an inexplicably violent proportion. The violent response took form at Plaza;¹¹ thereafter, it spread to Ikot Ekpene Road, Itu Road and other streets in Uyo.

Again, the social media, Facebook in particular, played its role of giving the protest some fervidness by spreading the message world over. The events that played out on 22 October 2020 in Uyo left many in awe. This is because within split seconds, hoodlums had hijacked the protest. Some of the major places that were attacked included one of the Zenith Bank Branches at Aka Road, Access Bank by Barracks Road and LG Show Room at Ikot Ekpene Road. Others were Icon Mobile Shop opposite the University of Uyo, the administrative office of Akwa Ibom State Broadcasting Corporation (AKBC) situated at Udo Udoma Avenue and Mbeto Boutique situated opposite the University of Uyo, among other private and public establishments. The general atmosphere in Uyo was tense; many business centres were forced to close for fear of being attacked by the protesters.

Other states, Abia, Bayelsa and Rivers, also recorded very unsavoury reactions from the youths. In Edo State, the situation was critical. The attacks were focused on security forces – especially police officers (Usman et al., 2020). It was reported on Facebook that no fewer than 15 deaths (comprised of civilians and police officers) were recorded in Benin City and its environs during the period of the violent protest (Okoro, 2020). Also, reports emerged that the security parameters of the prison facility along Benin-Sapele Road was breached and some inmates escaped (Ayodele, 2020; Egbas, 2020). The Edo State government gave an ultimatum for the escapees to either return to the facility or face the law. Another spectrum of the protest manifested in its use by rival cults to settle outstanding scores; the state recorded cult clashes, a consequence of poor policing. Many police officers had to leave the streets for safety’s sake. The #EndSARS movement exposed the weakness of the police.

In Aba, Abia State, youths equally reacted violently to the Lekki shootings of their compatriots. Although neither business centres nor buildings belonging to both state government and political appointees were attacked, youths in Umuahia and Aba marched both to the government house and to the state’s House of Assembly to register their protests. Rivers State, especially its capital, Port Harcourt, recorded its own experience not so much different from other states’ experiences. Besides Port Harcourt, the Oyibo Local Government Area recorded a massive scale of violence; protesters burnt down a police station situated in Ikoku Spare Parts Market (BBC, 2020). Again, Delta State recorded its own violent reaction from youths during the same period. Many attacks were unleashed on the Nigerian Police in different areas of Delta State in what was described as a payback to the extrajudicial acts of the police had committed in time past.

Conclusion

In all of these, two issues need to be reconsidered. First, the violent reactions from the youths or hoodlums based on the deaths of youths at the Lekki Tollgate created a negative spectacle of Nigeria among the comity of nations. Such an event demonstrated to other nations of the world that Nigeria is yet to take into cognizance issues that deal directly with citizens’ rights. Second, the spiral effects of the Lekki Tollgate massacre ensured that every state of the Niger Delta recorded losses in both lives and properties. The #EndSARs movement in the region was more violent than other parts of Nigeria because the people have been exposed to violence both physically and psychologically. So, the #EndSARS protest was only another platform to further articulate suppressed anger at their state governments and the country as a whole. Of importance, the #EndSARS protest exposes how Nigerian rulers are opposed to criticism. Those who dare to raise concerns over government’s policies and programmes are usually incarcerated or killed.

Footnotes

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iDs

Patrick Chukwudike Okpalaeke

Romanus Aboh

Notes

Author biographies

Patrick Chukwudike Okpalaeke holds a master’s degree in Social and Political History from the University of Uyo. He is a member of the Lagos Studies Association (LSA), and a member of the Historical Society of Nigeria. His article, Youth, Football and Everyday Lived Experience in Ajegunle, Lagos,” published by the Journal of African Cultural Studies (2021) is selected as one of the 60 free articles featured on the T&F website until January 2023.

Romanus Aboh, PhD., an AHP postdoctoral Fellow, is an Associate Professor of English and African Studies in the Department of English and Literary Studies, University of Calabar. His research interest includes Language and Identity, Language and Sexuality, Onomastics and Media Discourse. His co-authored article, Laughing at the Pandemic: Youth Performance and Digital Humour in Response to COVID-19 in Nigeria published by English Academy Review (2021) was featured among the best 60 articles in 2022 by Taylor and Francis in the African Studies Series. He’s the author of Language and the Construction of Multiple identities in the Nigerian Novel (2018) published by NICS, South Africa. His articles have appeared in well-regarded journals.

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