A definitive timeline of #EndSARS – the viral campaign to rid Nigeria of a police unit more notorious than armed robbers
Tina Ezekwe, 17, had big dreams and she was determined to surmount every stumbling block to make them come true. She would not allow anything stop her from becoming a medical doctor. Not even her status as a roadside fruit seller.
She had her life mapped out: sit for the West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE), take the Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME) and proceed to study medicine.
But all that would never happen.
On Monday May 26, 2020, Tina was at Iyana-Oworo bus stop in Lagos, south west Nigeria, where she sold fruits for her mother when a police officer arguing with a bus driver over bribe fired shots and a stray bullet hit Tina.
She died three days later, on Thursday May 28, at a hospital in Lagos Island.
The book was closed on Tina’s promising life just as it was shut on Bola Afilaka’s 25 years ago.
Afilaka was a 19-year-old undergraduate shot by Police in Lagos on January 25, 1995. He was detained in a police station with gunshot wounds and died two days later. Tina and Bola’s deaths are just a drop in a very full bucket of police impunity across Nigeria in more than 20 years that have gone unchecked but now fuelling rage across the country.
Events of the past 20 years have shown, in painful detail, that the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), a Police unit set up to combat robbery and other violent crimes has become more notorious than the armed robbers it was created to combat. Using its gun to take away the lives of the people it swore to protect. The many atrocities of SARS and decades of frustrations in Police impunity led to the viral #EndSARS protests that have engulfed Nigerian cities in the past week after three years of online protests.
A timeline of Policing in Nigeria
Policing in Nigeria evolved into an organized institution in the 1800s with the establishment of armed paramilitary Hausa Constabulary in 1879, the Lagos Police in 1896 and the Niger Coast Constabulary in Calabar in 1894 under the newly-proclaimed Niger Coast Protectorate.
In the North, the Royal Niger Company set up the Royal Niger Company Constabulary in 1888 with headquarters at Lokoja, Kogi State. When the protectorate of Northern and Southern Nigeria were proclaimed in 1914, part of the Royal Niger Company Constabulary became the Northern Nigeria Police and part of the Niger Coast Constabulary became the Southern Nigeria Police.
The northern and southern regional police forces were later merged, in 1930, to form the colony’s first national police now the Nigeria Police Force (NPF).
To combat the growing insecurity in Lagos, SARS was founded by Simeon Danladi Midenda, a retired Commissioner of Police in 1992. Before then, an anti-robbery unit had always existed in all Criminal Investigation Departments at Force Headquarters, Zonal and State Command levels.
The terror reign of Shina Rambo in Lagos in 1992 necessitated the formation of SARS by Midenda who was deployed to Lagos from Edo state for the special assignment.
The growing rate of other crimes like kidnapping, cultism and terrorism in different parts of the country, also led to the formation of Special Anti-Cultism Squad (SACS), Anti-Kidnapping Squad, Intelligence Response Team (IRT), Special Tactical Squad (STS).
Like SARS, many of these special units were empowered to combat increasing violent crimes threatening the peace and security of the society.
The successes of SARS:
The formation of SARS in 1992 led to the end of Shina Rambo’s reign of terror in Lagos and since then the unit and other tactical units have recorded remarkable success over criminal elements in Lagos and other parts of the country.
In recent times, the unit also recorded some big wins. In October 2019, SARS arrested a notorious kidnap suspect in Imo state, Chima Okorie, popularly known as Aboki.
The arrest of billionaire kidnap kingpin, Chukwudidumeme Onuamadike, aka Evans, in June 2017, by the ACP Abba Kyari-led Intelligence Response Team (IRT), earned the Police commendations from Nigerians.
In March 2020, SARS apprehended 10 vicious and notorious armed robbery and kidnapping suspects.
In August 2020, a kidnapper popularly known as ‘Lion’ and five other gang members were arrested in Calabar, Cross River State.
Just recently, in September 2020, SARS arrested notorious kidnap suspects, Abubakar Ibrahim, in Katsina state, and Honest Digbara aka Boboski in Rivers State.
The many shortcomings of SARS
As SARS was recording big wins, it also metamorphosed into an unprecedented disaster, terrorising young Nigerians.
In the last decade there have been hundreds of reported and unreported cases of extortion, harassment and killings of young Nigerians by the unit.
Amnesty International documented at least 82 of such cases between January 2017 and May 2020. And the victims are predominantly male between the ages of 18 and 35, from low-income backgrounds and vulnerable groups.
Some of the reported cases of Police atrocities include:
The killing of Kolade Johnson by Inspector Ogunyemi Olalekan of the Special Anti-Cultism Squad in Lagos on March 31, 2019.
Sammani Zangon Marikita was shot dead by Police in Kano on December 4, 2019. Four months after his graduation from Indian university.
On February 22, 2020, Kazeem Tiyamiyu aka Kaka, Remo Stars Football Club Assistant Captain was arrested, pushed by SARS, and hit by vehicle on the highway in Ogun state.
Chibuike Daniel Ikeaguchi was also felled by SARS bullets in Rivers State in September 2020.
There are many more victims.
How The #EndSARS Campaign Started
In 2017, young Nigerians, predominantly male between the ages of 18 and 35, who are victims of brutal policing started tweeting about their ordeal with the #EndSARS hashtag to call the government’s attention to the menace.
As the online protests began to gain traction, the government was forced to announce a ban and reform of the unit, but it was only on paper. In the last four years, the government and the police authorities have announced a ban on the activities of SARS four times. But nothing has changed.
In 2017, former IGP Ibrahim Idris announced a ban on stop and search by SARS.
In August 2018, the same announcement was repeated due to a new wave of social media rage at the time.
In January 2019, the current IGP Mohammed Adamu announced the disbandment of FSARS and Special Tactical Squad.
In February 2020, following the death of Remo Stars player Tiyamiyu Kazeem, the IGP ordered the closure of SARS offices across the country.
When the present wave of protests started gathering momentum, the IGP rinsed and repeated his January 2019 order and told Nigerians that the unit has been disbanded, yet again.
Between January 2017 and May 2020, at least 82 cases of torture, ill treatment and extra-judicial execution by SARS were documented by Amnesty International. While many of the incidents made news headlines, hundreds of other cases are unreported.
But young Nigerians were not having it, in October 2020 they didn’t just call for a disbanding of the unit, they demanded a total reform of the Police Force.
Less than two weeks into the peaceful protests that gained global attention, on the night of Tuesday, October 20, 2021, soldiers deployed by the Nigerian government to the Lekki toll gate, opened fire on unarmed protesters.
Live footage monitored by Neusroom on the Instagram page of Nigerian disk jockey, DJ Switch, showed unarmed protesters in the pool of their blood and reports say about nine were shot dead.
The shootings streamed live on DJ Switch Instagram page had over 150,000 people watching from different parts of the world on Tuesday evening. It highlighted the extrajudicial killings by Nigerian security operatives that sparked the protests that have lasted for more than 10 days across major cities in the country.
It’s been over a year and the Nigerian government is yet to take responsibility for the killings. The Nigerian Army which initially called report of the shootings fake news, later said its men didn’t fire live rounds at the toll gate.
The Commander of 81 Division, Ibrahim Taiwo, told the End SARS panel in Lagos in November 2020 that soldiers fired only blank bullets to disperse protesters on the night of October 20, 2020.
At another appearance before the panel, he said the soldiers went to Lekki tollgate on October 20 with both blank and live ammunition but insisted that the soldiers fired only blank ammunition.
An investigation by CNN, however, claimed that the Nigerian Army used live bullets on the protesters.
According to the CNN report, “several of the bullets from the Lekki toll gate originated from Serbia. Export documents CNN has seen show that Nigeria purchased weaponry from Serbia almost every year between 2005 and 2016.”
In an interview with Arise TV on June 12, 2021, President Muhammadu Buhari claimed the goal of the End SARS protests was to remove him from office. Many Nigerians believe his wrong perception about the End SARS movement may have informed the brutal attack on protesters at Lekki and other parts of the country as the Lagos and federal government continue to deny giving the order for the shooting.
- This story was first published at 6:26 am on Tuesday, October 20, 2021, hours before the shooting of protesters at the Lekki toll gate by the Nigerian Army.
- The story has now been updated to include information about the shooting of protesters and the government’s denial.
