Full Project - ENDSARS PROTEST AND POLICE BRUTALITY: ITS IMPLICATIONS ON

Full Project – ENDSARS PROTEST AND POLICE BRUTALITY: ITS IMPLICATIONS ON NIGERIANS YOUTHS

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CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1 Background to the Study

Police brutality or excessive use of force by law enforcement can be legally defined as a civil rights violation, where law enforcement officers exercise due force against a subject. Use of torture as interrogative technique and other wanton abuses of human rights remain some of the major flaws of the Nigeria Police Force which has attracted public odium, opprobrium, and condemnation to the Force Bruce (2011). Torture, described as one of the most extreme forms of violence, resulting to both psychological and physical consequences is sometimes considered as an indispensable interrogation mechanism for gathering strategic intelligence Constanzo & Gerrity (2009) Worried by the incessant reports of human rights abuse of the members of the Police Force, the Former Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, once warned the Special Anti-Robbery Squad operatives against torture and extrajudicial killings, saying “no policeman in the world had the right or authority to kill crime suspects” The Punch (2016, September 23) He admonished the SARS personnel to always respect the right of every Nigerian, noting that this was the way they could change the negative public perception about them. Protests against police brutality previously have arisen in Nigeria, as advocates and researchers have documented extensive evidence of human rights abuses by SARS officers and other NPF personnel. In a 2016 report, Amnesty International asserted that SARS officers routinely committed torture and other abuses against detainees—many of whom were arrested arbitrarily, detained incommunicado, and forced to “confess” or pay bribes to secure release Aborisade, R. & Fayemi, J. (2015).

Police brutality has thus lead to youths engagement in fierce protest. Protest is a global phenomenon. Therefore, the past decade is saturated with instances of protests across the world, such as Occupy Wall Street, the Spanish Indignados, the first Arab Spring uprising of 2010 in Tunisia and Egypt, and the second Arab Spring in Morocco, Jordan, Sudan, Algeria, Egypt, Lebanon, Iraq and Syria in the period of 2018-2020. The Black Lives Matter movement, Gorge Floyd and anti-lockdown protests were also carried out in various nations, such as the United States of America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain, Germany, the Czech Republic and other European nations. Similarly, the South American nations (Brazil, Ecuador, Chile, Argentina, Bolivia, Colombia, Peru and Venezuela) also experienced widespread protests due to long periods of frustrations, dissatisfaction with the social policies of governments and mismanagement of the COVID-19 pandemic. In Asia, common protests included the labour protests in China, the Anti- Extradition Law Amendment Bill movement in Hong Kong (2019-2020), the Candlelight Struggle or Candlelight Revolution of South Korea (2016-2017) and a host of others. In the African setting, common protests included protests related to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Fees Must Fall protest (2015-2016) and xenophobic protests in South Africa, the Malian spring protests of 2020, and the anti-third-term presidential bid protests in Ivory Coast in the run-up to the presidential election of 31 October 2020. In recent times, Ghanaians have also protested as a result of widespread socio-economic challenges, such as rising inflation, high cost of living, corruption and removal of fuel subsidies on goods and services.

Nigeria has a rich history of protests, especially student protests, which played a seminal role in the struggle for the nation’s independence in 1960. Thus, there has been a preponderance of protests in Nigeria. This unwelcome development is so pervasive that many have considered protests to be an indispensable part of contemporary Nigerian society. Nigerians have protested for several reasons, which include police brutality. Given that the political and socio-economic structure of Nigeria plays a key role in the determination of the roles and priority of the citizenry and the police force, various tasks of the police in Nigeria are related to the various conflicting interests among various citizens, which could threaten the peace and stability of the society. Therefore, in an attempt to ensure law and order, some police officers have resorted to the use of excessive violence and other forms of police brutality, leading to a gross violation of the human rights of Nigerians (Alemika, 1999; Ibrahim, 2016). The resulting protests against acts of brutality, especially those committed by the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), an elite group within the police force tasked with combating armed robbery and its associated crimes, have been a recurring theme in Nigerian society. The EndSARS (Special Anti-Robbery Squad) protest, which resembles related global protests, was largely unanticipated, leaderless, local and global, online and offline, violent and non-violent. As Nigerians and the global community takes stock of the immediate and future implications of the EndSARS protests, this study expands the frontiers of knowledge with a focus on EndSARS and Police brutality: Its implications on Nigerians Youths.

1.2 Statement of the Problem

One of the events that accompanied the later part of year 2020 after the covid 19 pandemic and the enactment of the company and allied matters act (CAMA 2020) by the President of the federal republic of Nigeria is the uproar in the country by the citizens on the EndSARS protest. EndSARS (or #EndSARS) is a decentralised social movement against police brutality in Nigeria. It was a call for the federal government of Nigeria to scrap the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), a controversial unit of the Nigerian Police with a long record of abuses. The protests started in 2017 as a Twitter campaign using the hashtag #ENDSARS to demand the Nigerian government eliminate the force which after experiencing a revitalization in October 2020, mass demonstrations were occurring throughout Nigeria in major cities, and the hashtag has had over 28 million tweets. Nigerians have shared their experiences and video evidence of how members of SARS engaged in kidnapping, murder, theft, rape, torture, unlawful arrests, humiliation, unlawful detention, extrajudicial killings, and extortion in Nigeria all over the internet and social media. SARS officers have been alleged to profile youths based on fashion choices, mount illegal road blocks and searches, conduct unwarranted temperature checks, arrest without warrant, rape women, and extort young Nigerians for driving exotic vehicles and using laptops and iPhones. All this uproar has led to killings of protesters, burning and destroying of public and private properties in the country. As the protest was at the peak of it, the Nigerian government on Sunday, 11th October 2020 announced it was dissolving SARS and to carry out a reformation of the police force to serve the citizens better. This study therefore, seeks to ascertain EndSARS and Police brutality: Its implications on Nigerians Youths.

1.3 Research Objectives

The general objective of the study is on EndSARS and Police brutality: Its implications on Nigerians Youths.

The specific objectives of the study are:

To examine the main causes of the EndSARS protest among Nigerian youths
To examine the consequences and implications of the EndSARS protest and police brutality among Nigerian youths
Prescribe possible ways of solving the problem for peaceful co-existence of the police and youths in Nigeria .

1.4 Research Questions

From the above objectives, the main research question will be;

What are the causes of the EndSARS protest among Nigerian youths?
What are the consequences and implications of the EndSARS protest and police brutality among Nigerian youths?
In what ways can the peaceful co-existence of the police and youths be achieved to avoid another protest?

1.5 Justification/Significance of the Study

This study will help government and policymakers align and realign laws and policies to fit into the demand of the populace to create an environment that will promote and protect the rights of the citizens, rule of law, protection of lives and properties as stated as the major function of the security personnel and restrict the abuse of power of security personnel in the country. Also, this study will serve as reference materials for further studies.

1.6 Scope and Limitations

The main thrust of this research work is to examine EndSARS and Police brutality: Its implications on Nigerians Youths. A lot of factors act as a constraint to this work though it was carefully managed by the researcher. Such constraints are:

Financial Constraints: The researcher was with limited funds, she cannot visit all the areas to get responses from respondents but she was able to get good information concerning the research topic.

Time Constraints: The researcher was involved in other departmental activities like seminars, attendance of lectures et.c which limited her time for the research but the researcher was able to meet up with the time assigned for the completion of the research work.

Dearth in Literature: There is a dearth of literature available that examines ENDSARS and Police brutality. Most research and literature explores only media coverage of the endsars.

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Full Project – ENDSARS PROTEST AND POLICE BRUTALITY: ITS IMPLICATIONS ON NIGERIANS YOUTHS

Full Project – ENDSARS PROTEST AND POLICE BRUTALITY: ITS IMPLICATIONS ON NIGERIANS YOUTHS

Full Project – ENDSARS PROTEST AND POLICE BRUTALITY: ITS IMPLICATIONS ON NIGERIANS YOUTHS

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