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Last Friday, October 20, 2023 will not be easily forgotten in the memory of the Nigerians especially the youths when victims of the historic #END SARS# protests against police brutality took place at Lekki Toll Gate, Lagos.
Also, in 2012, during the Occupy Nigeria protest, Amnesty International reported that at least 45 protesters were arrested and are still in detaintion illegally.
In 2012 Occupy Nigeria a socio-political protest movement that began in Nigeria on Monday, 2 January 2012 in response to fuel subsidy removal by the Federal Government of President Goodluck Jonathan on Sunday, 1 January 2012.
Various protests took place across the country, including cities like Kano, Shomolu, Surulere, Ojota ( metropolitan Lagos ), Abuja, Minna, and at the Nigerian High Commission in London.
The protests have been characterised by civil disobedience, civil resistance, strike actions, demonstrations and online activism. Some of the protesters were killed while some went into hiding or ran out of the country prominent among them is Shomolu APC youth leader Joe Shola Oredia was attacked and almost killed but his deputy Basir kolawole was not so lucky as he was brutally killed by Nigeria police sevaral other people were injured or killed during the protest, the Nigeria police later declared Joe Shola Oredi, Kazeem Abas and five others wanted for arson after the 2012 protest of occupy Nigeria and their whereabouts not known since then.
Nigerians made use of social media such as Twitter and Facebook as a prominent feature for the protests. Post Occupy Nigeria and 2015, the Nigerian Government under the former president, Muhammadu Buhari has increased fuel prices from N87 to N145 with little resistance with the view that Nigerians have realized that fuel subsidies are actually inimical to the country’s growth rather than a mechanism towards helping the poor.
In October 2020, thousands of Nigerians staged nationwide protests to kick against the human rights abuses of the now-disbanded Special Anti-Robbery Squad, SARS.
Security forces opened fire on harmless demonstrators, prompting global condemnation. A government-commissioned inquiry described the shooting and resultant deaths as a massacre while many prominent Nigerians went into hiding or left the country for fear of being killed.
In Lagos, a small group of people held a rally to demand justice for victims of police brutality. “Nobody is going to be happy when security agents are unjustly killing people, suffering them, oppressing them,” said Nigerian actor and skit maker, Adebowale Adebayo, aka Mr Macaroni.
