#ENDSARS Movement and Economic Protest: An Appraisal of a Revolution Raped in the Shadow of Brutality.

Autor: Anyika, Vincent Okwudiba, Ani, Kelechi Johnmary, Mutambara, Emmanauel
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Zdroj: African Journal of Development Studies; 2023 Special Issue, Vol. 13, p115-133, 19p
Abstrakt: The Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), a unit of the Nigerian police Force has been described as a lawless police outfit that inflict crude brutality on its suspects and carries out execution at will without restraints. It was the excesses of this police outfit that precipitated the #EndSARS protest of October 2020. This paper appraises the causes, course and collapse of the #EndSARS movement with a view to providing detailed explanation of the October events. The study adopted a combination of ethnographical research approach and content analysis of documents. The study also deployed the Herber Blumer's four stage model of social movement life cycle as its main theoretical cleavage. The paper from its findings posits that through the #EndSARS protests, the Nigerian youth whose voice had in the past been silenced found back and asserted their collective voice demanding for an end to police brutality. Despite violent repressions by the political class through their agents the protesters carried on with the protests until the black Tuesday when a section of the protesters were brutality attacked by men of the Nigerian army which left about 12 protesters dead and many injured. The protest though conveyed its message but died prematurely as a result of overwhelming brutality that it met. Also, the protest through its lack of leadership and non-articulation of its programme and lack of discipline could not be sustained. Having been silence on October 20, the youth once again relapsed into silent status. The paper also noted that the widespread looting spree that swept across Nigeria is an omen that the growing poverty in Nigeria may trigger a more chaotic revolution that the political class cannot withstand. The paper recommends for an effective police reform, better remuneration for the police, good and accountable governance and far reaching poverty alleviation programmes that will mitigate the spate of human suffering in Nigeria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
Databáze: Complementary Index