1 Year After #EndSARS: Where Are They Now? -By David Hundeyin

In November 2020, Ralph and I sat on a balcony contemplating the sudden end of the lives we had just a few weeks prior. Ralph or Adebayo Raphael, as he is more commonly known, was one of a core group of protesters whose presence was critical to keeping the 3-week #EndSARS protests going in Abuja the previous month. He had specifically enraged the government by publicly posting the contact details of public officials who were hostile to the protests on his Twitter handle.

Like me, he had received information tipping him off about his impending arrest by Nigerian state agents, and he chose to hightail it across the border in the time-honoured NADECO Route fashion after a high-risk Abuja-Lagos overnight journey. Now sitting on the lonely 6th floor apartment balcony, Ralph was telling me about someone called Imoleayo Michael, a protester in Abuja who was languishing in DSS custody. Since we left Nigeria a few days before, Ralph informed me, there had been a huge crackdown on perceived protest leaders by the Nigeria Police Force and the myriad alphabet soup security agencies. DSS this, NIA that, DMI the other, DIA…

Over the ensuing year, Ralph and I would find ourselves staring at an ugly, clandestine battle between the Nigerian state and young people identified either as protesters or protest conveners. The following 4 stories are a snapshot of the series of bad faith interactions between the Nigerian state and young people linked to the #EndSARS protests of October 2020. Each of the stories below is that of the subject in question, written in their own words, with my input restricted only to minimal stylistic editing for improved readability. First up is Ralph himself telling the story of how he became a hunted animal forced into exile, and what happened next.

The Protest Organiser

My name is Adebayo Raphael. You might remember me as the guy speaking through a haze of teargas in the video below. You might also remember me as the person who leaked telephone numbers belonging to Presidential spokesperson Femi Adesina, Information Minister Lai Mohammed and Humanitarian Affairs Minister Sadiya Umar Farouq during the #EndSARS protests.

In my previous lifetime, I was a community organiser and a co-convener of the Centre For Liberty, a Civil Liberty Organisation focused on protecting the constitutionally guaranteed freedoms of Nigerians. I am no stranger to butting heads with the Nigerian government, but what happened in October and November 2020 took everything I thought I knew about Nigeria and threw it out of the window. There are many memories that I will never forget about the EndSARS protests. But, let me mention three that I think are consequential.

First, I will not forget the fact that for the first time in the history of the Fourth Republic, I saw Southern Nigerians and many a great number of people from the Middle-Belt express themselves in an unfettered manner which, I think, was only last seen in Nigeria during the June 12 struggle. The sense of agency, raw expression and democratized leadership, which inflamed the protests, was a particular indication of the mood and the aspirations of the young people of my generation.

For the first time, I saw an intergenerational synergy–mostly millennials and Gen. Z–to get involved in a cause that was not only noble and compelling but one which was also about essentializing freedom and human dignity. It was an untrodden path for the majority of protesters, but I was glad to see it sprout up in the way which it did. The passion was also real, and there are several people whose faces I recall being at the protests sometimes day and night.

Second, I have never stopped remembering (and I am convinced I never will) the cannibalistic nature of the Nigerian state and its hired savages. During the protests, if you recall, there were several onslaughts by people from a particular part of this country, whose undisguised role in the peaceful protests was to hack down peaceful protesters in Abuja—and to an extent, it was the same in Lagos—but for the resistance of the protesters, they were inhibited and repelled a bit until the Nigerian state shunned all pretenses and became more involved with the savages.

In previous protests in which I had participated, I had somewhat seen the savage tendency of these people, but during EndSARS, they were insanely and tirelessly bloody, and I saw different kinds of cuts on the bodies of many protesters; people who had been hacked by these savages, from Berger Roundabout to Wuse, Airport Road, Central District, Central Bank Headquarters to Kubwa where the brutal execution of Anthony Unuode happened and still rings loud in my head.

Never mind the immeasurable heaps of totaled properties of peaceful protesters or the role of the so-called security agencies in consistently using violent means against the protesters. The Nigerian police in particular, and their vile role in chaperoning these savages to unleash mayhem on us, will never be forgotten. The night at CBN for instance, the savages kept showing up in different chartered buses and we got them to turn back each time. Then, the Nigerian police showed up in about six or seven vans and said they were only there to check up on us. That was very odd because they had attacked us during the daytime the day before.

A that time, our numbers had considerably depleted. Shortly after the police left, the savages returned in fiercer numbers than we could resist. Again, the police escorted them. They destroyed so many things, almost everything at that overnight sit-in, but thankfully there was no casualty on our side. But I will never forget that they kept chanting “Allahu Akbar!” I think some videos from that night are still online. There are people who took part in the protests in Abuja who still contemplate suicide because of the goriness of the protests. There are also those who wish they had simply been liquidated during the whole chaos. I am loath to say that, but it is the truth.

Third, I am very proud to have witnessed the level of coordination achieved during the protests, though it was knee-jerk for the most part. Some teams were randomly set up to oversee security, sanitation, feeding, and at a point, even reconnaissance. And many others just played a very human and inspiring role. There were also times when people with a sinister agenda showed up; and despite having no visible leadership hierarchy, we managed to keep things going without much ado. It was this coordination and enduring support from random sources that ensured we didn’t really lack anything. In any case, I think the decentralised leadership, though advantageous in some ways, also had its several disadvantages. More importantly, however, I will never forget that there has been no accountability, let alone justice.

So why did I leave Nigeria? Well, it was a culmination of different things that led to that. And a lot happened. But, primarily, I had been involved in the protests like everyone else. But as the peaceful protests progressed, I became more involved in a way that got me exposed. I am not exactly sure whether it was because I had always been part of one form of protest or another before the EndSARS protests in October, or it was something else entirely.

But, I recall that the day after the Berger Roundabout incident in which the police chaperoned hired savages to attack us—it was the same day that I spoke on behalf of the protesters at the National Assembly—I began noticing some strange individuals trailing my movements during and immediately after the protests. In view of this, I made it a duty to always be in company of some trusted comrades. But the trailing subsequently increased, and I began to take longer routes back home, and sometimes, I entirely gave up going straight home after the protest.

But I would later learn from the security guard at home that some people came asking after me and after confirming that it was none of my people, I realized it was time to go underground. I would later learn that there was a house-to-house search going on by both hired savages and security agents and they were going after the perceived coordinators of the protests. During this period, some hired savages narrowly missed a comrade who had been instrumental in helping us expose one of the shameless people funding the mobilization of thugs to harm peaceful protesters in Abuja.

His brother got attacked in his stead, but he received quick medical attention. Whilst underground, I kept receiving calls to disappear completely, and this happened just after the Lekki Massacre. But I was not one to just up and leave in the middle of a struggle, so I stayed and we managed to very discreetly organize some defiance actions at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Force Headquarters, and later Aso Villa and National Assembly.

For full story: West Africa Weekly