The Good, The Bad & The Ugly: All the Lessons Learnt from #endSARS’

   

A thorough analysis by Ayo Adene.

1. Women. Two weeks ago, first mass protest was at Alausa, the Lagos State Government Secretariat. Their chief organizer was Rinu Oduala, a lobbyist with a previous record organizing anti-Covid awareness campaigns. The most iconic photograph of many has been of Aisha Yesufu, a long-standing activist who is a Muslim woman, statuesquely defying police teargas. The tremendous success of protest fundraising has been organized by an all-female lobby, The Feminist Coalition.

2. No Leader. They say #endSARS confuses the authorities, because it lacks a visible arrowhead whom they can compromise. As we say in local parlance, e shock dem. While the protest is truly non-traditional, it does have a leader. The leader is an idea, whose time has come. Good luck targeting that.

3. Showing where allegiances lie. Nigeria has an armada of celebrities, influencers and traditional activists whose profiles rose & fell in this current movement. Some, like Segalink, Sowore & Debola of Lagos have been sidelined. Others like Falz, Tacha & Davido, have aligned. The masses know who is, and isn’t on their side.

4. The establishment. That’s who #endSARS is rallying against. We thought it was just the police and the politicians. And yes, practically no state governor has fully aligned with the protesters, although savvier ones like Lagos’ Sanwoolu have acted in ‘performative allyship’, which fell apart today as he slammed a curfew. Others like the Osun governor have used their convoy to murder protesters. Beyond politicians, we’ve learnt that the Nigerian media is hardly on the side of the masses. Not even Channels, the multiple award-winning news station, which at first ignored the protests, then when pressured, began to report from the government viewpoint. Then there’s the religious leadership, and apart from early & consistent messaging by Pastor Sam Adeyemi, and Rev. Fr. Chinenye Oluoma, there have been sporadic spurts of performative speeches from few others, but mostly pin drop silence where there was once pulpit pounding over tithes, Daddy Freeze and the CAMA act.

5. Circumventing Divide & Rule. Exploiting popular differences has always been the oldest trick in the book, for the establishment to scuttle any organized resistance. But so far, EndSARS has circumvented divide & rule stereotypes: no ethnicity, no religion, no party, no gender. This has kept the movement alive in spite of concerted efforts by the establishment, including violent attacks by police, and sponsored thugs. However, two flaws remain in our unity, and we will discuss those at the end, in lessons unlearnt.

6. Financial Innovation. Until the Central Bank, and some commercial banks blocked the fundraising, nearly 40 million naira was contributed within one week of protests. Not to be deterred, the organizers have switched to Cryptocurrency. A timely tweet from Twitter CEO Jack also bolstered advocacy for a global fundraising drive.

7. Community solidarity. an unprecedented solidarity has been seen, with many essential services provided to protesters, unusually free of charge: organized feeding, free airtime, medical support, face masks, gas masks, advocacy, infographics blitz, mechanics & engineers undertaking free repairs for damaged cars, private security against hired thugs & even free electricity: there are mega charging stations for protesters phones.

8. Information & Social media. This is that race that “the olds”, as the establishment are now called, cannot win. EndSARS has deployed the democratic advantages of social media, and Twitter has been the medium of choice. Quality photography and messaging has also been widely shared through Instagram and Facebook. Internationally famous hackers ‘anonymous’ have shown just how non-existent Nigeria’s internet security infrastructure is, by hacking several key government websites and accounts. There’s even publicly released research & data about legislative salaries (29 M per senator per month), Lekki toll revenues (over 200 M per month), and about previous police investigations, all of which point to future burner issues that might be the sequelae to EndSARS.

9. Pulitzer prize worthy viral photography: there’s no end to the series of poignant moments captured since EndSARS started. Nigeria is blessed with a replete surplus of photographers with a trained eye and artistic flourish. Photo books are now ready to be published, and films to be made, based on the unprecedented abundance of vivid photographic data accumulated in just two weeks. Whether they attract global awards and news magazine covers or not, no doubt these virally shared photographs will go down in history like many other memorable coverages from the Tiananmen Protests in China, to the Black Lives Matter in US, and now EndSARS in Nigeria.

10. Environmental revolution: there has been more cleaning up of Nigerian streets in these two weeks, per capita, than in all of Nigerian history. Unlike our monthly Sanitation Saturdays, no law has mandated these regular after protest clean ups. They have been entirely voluntary, one more sign of a Nigerian future that is green and clean. One couldn’t be prouder of how sensible and authentic we’ve become.

Now to our unlearnt lessons. There are 4.

11. One lesson we have not learnt well is specifically about the age long “north” vs “south” rhetoric. Many memes are going round portraying the north & south as incompatible on the issue of endsars. On this point, we are falling for the oldest trick in the book, the stereotyping of ethnicity.

There is only one winner, and that’s the establishment.

Yes, certain northern groups have come out for “ProSARS” protests. 

Then in Abuja, Northern street children have been used to attack protesters with knives, and destroy cars. Thankfully, protesters demobilized the urchins, and some ended up in hospital, bills paid. That’s how we win hearts & minds. Some of these attackers were paid hacks, others genuinely believe everything southern is against them, cos they have been indoctrinated that way.

Truth is, they are just poor, manipulated masses. Like us in that sense. It’s been so since the colonizers deliberately kept them backward through the collaboration of their ruling elite, especially with a deliberate anti education policy which became the seed of today’s 10-year insurgency Boko Haram.

Rather than aping years of lazy minded anti north rhetoric, we should emulate the empathy and patriotism of the late politician Obafemi Awolowo, who said:

“In 1959, during the election that was to usher in independence in 1960, I embarked on an elaborate campaign in the North. I was using helicopter to campaign in every nook and corner of the North.

My hope at that time was to liberate the north from illiteracy, ignorance, and the ‘ranka dede’ mentality of the less privileged majority. 

If I had won the election, I would have put a lot of money educating the north in order to bridge the educational gap between that region and the western and eastern regions.

Because they were not educated, the voters could not make up their own minds and make their own choices. Rather, the innocent people of the north had to be dictated to by emirs and the elites who feed them on a regular basis. Unfortunately, all my efforts to liberate the north from the cruel jaws of the oligarchy were frustrated by those who prefer the status quo to the dawn of educational advancement.

If I had been given the chance in 1959 or 1979, I would have changed the fortunes of the north as a place that can be compared favorably with the south in terms of educational, social and economic developments. I don’t believe that the north is destined to be educationally and socially backward. It is their (oligarchs) that make them so.”

End of quote, from pp 197-202 of Chapter 4: ‘Thirty-Five Days Before His Death’, 

in Professor M.A. Makinde’s book ‘Awo: The Last Conversation.’

Awo’s position on north versus south is the informed view about our notoriously intractable, politically constructed divide.

Meanwhile, this week Jos protests have drawn record crowds, while in Kano, & Kaduna, the northern masses have slowly risen and found their voices in street protests, chanting “Buhari is a Bad Boy!”

We must show empathy for the fact that an average northerner is not as free as we relatively are, to rebel against religion, or culture.

Humanist Mubarak Bala is a case in point: he’s still incarcerated without redress, over 6 months after voicing a contrary opinion. Outside, he faces death threats.

12. Second unlearnt lesson. During the EndSARS protests in Abuja, physical conflict arose between a group of LGBTQ protesters with a rainbow flag, and the rest of the movement. On the one hand, EndSARS protesters are resisting the possible hijacking of a people’s movement by any political agenda, such as, for example, Sowore’s Revolution Now. They say focus now, and other issues can come later. On the other hand, the trenchant homophobia in the manner of rejection of those Abuja LGBTQ co-protesters, especially illustrated in the hundreds of condescending tweets that trended afterwards, was impossible to miss.

To cap it all, the kingpin of anti-SARS activism, Segalink, used a pro LGBTQ tweet by The Feminist Coalition, as his excuse for pulling out, laden with inciting words like “insurrection” & “demonic”: perfect fodder for divide & rule.

That was not a good moment. It exposed the ideological shallowness of our protest in particular, and should remind us that we have a long way to go, in understanding how oppression works, and how to dismantle it.

One hopes that as consciousness grows, we organize more around the intersectionality of oppressions. Intersectionality is an ideology famously pioneered at the Universities of Columbia & Los Angeles, by Professor Kimberlé Crenshaw, a Law professor, who coined the term intersectionality to describe the way all our social identities can overlap. Her ideas have become fundamental to struggle movements worldwide.

In the final point after this, I will illustrate why EndSARS needs to incorporate “Strategy and Tactics” into the movement. But there is only one oppressor, and only one oppressed. History is full of similar mistakes, where freedom fighters forgot the idea that we are as only as strong as our weakest link, and the struggle is between the elite and the masses, and the only sustainable strategy is Intersectional Justice.

13. Third unlearnt lesson. We already have a consistent list of clear demands. It’s called #5for5. It covers everything from setting up commissions of enquiry to compensation for the victims & survivors of SARS. Now here’s the question. Do we know exactly what that process of implementation would look like, if we saw it?

When we don’t know what the implementation journey will entail, how do we recognize when we are being fooled by a juicy offer that will turn out not to be the solution? 

Earlier on my timeline, I have detailed a few of the Mass Murders committed by SARS over 20 years, and the structure of public commissions on Crimes of Genocide, by international standards.

Clearly, the EndSARS movement still needs an implementation plan for the 5for5 demands, otherwise there’s the risk of settling for platitudes & breakable promises.

14. Final unlearnt lesson. 

We must learn from our own history.

The first political organization in Nigeria was in 1908. It was called The People’s Union, and was led by JK Randle and Ernest Ikoli. Lagos-based, it only lasted 2 years.

After that, a region wide protest movement led by the legendary Aba Women ended in 1929 with the deaths of over 52 women.

Beyond ethnic and regional movements, Nigeria’s first political party with a national outlook was the Nigerian Youth Movement, in 1934. Never was political organizing more ambitious, with arrowheads like Professor Eyo Ita, Samuel Akisanya, and later on, Nnamdi Azikiwe.

So what led to its end, after about 10 years? 

Ethnic difference. 

Ethnicity prevented all the smart ideas & ideologues in NYM from coming together.

Zik left to form the NCNC by 1944, and Awo the AG by 1947, neither of which saw eye to eye.

And the colonial government took advantage of the lack of coherent strategy & tactics among Nigerians.

Already EndSARS has demonstrated remarkable resolve against our three biggest demons, religion, ethnicity and socioeconomic class.

But there will be other tests.

There will be ideas, ideologies and covert tactics, there will be cyberwarfare, the usual paid Russian hackers, other Cambridge Analytica Style psyops, and the propagation of misinformation.

What is the ideology of the EndSARS movement? 

It should have its own teachers, researchers, and ideologues on the frontline, strategically honing the minds of protesters to close ranks. We should always stay ten steps ahead of the establishment, and their foreign allies.

Strategy & tactics for the long haul.

Are we ready?

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It’s Afro. It’s Reality. It’s Truth.