#EndSars: The turn of events has highlighted both beautiful and some painful realities about Nigeria.

The EndSARS movement which represents the largest social movements against police brutality, which started with a single demand, that government disbands the Special Anti Robbery Squad (SARS) and later included calls for holistic police reform in Nigeria.

The movement which started in 2017 as a Twitter campaign #ENDSARS but disappeared and made comeback this October of 2020 has served as a rallying point for many aggrieved Nigerians, the decentralized nature of the movement made it even more appealing for young people from different backgrounds.

Although it started in the Southern part of the country, the movement quickly spread to the northern parts of the country, where police brutality is not as rampant but thousands took to the streets to stand in solidarity with the victims, with protests holding in Kano, Zaria, Kaduna, and Jos plateau and spilling internationally, with massive demonstrations and vigils in London, other parts of Europe and the USA.

Trending worldwide for over a week and accumulating over 28 million tweets made it a truly global movement, this goes to show the level of solidarity the movement has enjoyed on one hand and the level of seriousness that is the case of police brutality is in Nigeria and across the globe.

The unanimous calls to #ENDSARS shook not just Lagos but the Asorock villa, which lead to the disbanding of the rogue police unit quicker than anticipated, with a statement from the Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, and backing from the presidency.

One would assume that victory has been achieved and that the protesters will go off the streets, but the reverse was the case, protests continued to grow by the day, and donations to sustain the movement started coming in both internationally and within the country, free foods, internet and charging stations were setup for protesters to use, occupying and blocking the Lekki tollgate.

Refusing to end the protests was due to a lack of trust, many argued that it was not the first time the government said it has disbanded SARS, it has verbally ended SARS for 3 consecutive years, the protesters vowed to continue the protests and blockade until the 5of5 demands presented to the government are fulfilled.

The decision to continue protesting and occupying strategic public spaces raised eyebrows, with the government insisting that the protesters ought to vacate public spaces and the leaders of the movement saying otherwise.

The decision to keep protesters in the street was a defining moment for the movement, the protests continued to get a lot of media attention globally and have made enemies within the country, which led to unknown elements hiring hoodlums to attack protesters in Lagos, Abuja, and Kano and some hoodlums to take advantage of the security and leadership vacuum to cause chaos and carnage in many parts of Lagos which included he killing and lynching of police officers and the burning of public and private property.

The Lagos state government in response to the killings and chaos imposed a 24-hour curfew in Lagos, in an attempt to restore law and order in the state.

The movement descended into chaos when video footage and Instagram live streams“allegedly” showed armed men in Nigerian army uniforms shooting at unarmed protesters standing at the Lekki bridge, the video of the shootings, fake news, and comments made by many social influencers invited more chaos into the mix which pushed the conversations around the protests into a full-blown social media tribal wars, between Nigeria’s 3 main tribes Hausa Igbo and Yoruba.

The conversations around the protests have highlighted the ubiquity of tribalism and other forms of bigotry across the country, we have seen how many supposed leaders made comments that are directly calling for violence and hate on people based on tribe or religion, for not responding to the call to join in on the wanton destruction of lives and public property, these people have since lost a lot of respect and public credibility.

While the movement has achieved a lot of successes, with the government disbanding SARS hopefully for good this time, the establishment of independent judicial panels of inquiry in more than a dozen states, the commitment to compensate victims of police brutality, and a promise of reforming the police, there is a lot more to be done and this time not by the government but by ordinary citizens and the de facto leaders of the movement on Nigeria’s cyberspace of healing the divide caused by the movement through education and enlightenment.

Many of the influencers have contributed to the carnage caused either directly by making reckless comments about people of different opinions or those from a different region, religion, or indirectly through their tone while arguing the need to resist the government.

We must all take responsibility the way we want leaders to, by doing what is needed even when it is not unpopular or risk becoming just like or even worse than the leaders we sit to criticize everyday.

We have a responsibility, we cannot assume positions of leadership when it suits us but abdicate that responsibility when calling people to do the right thing is unpopular.

Naufal Ahmad is an activist, working around youth political & economic inclusion in Nigeria.