Police Brutality in Nigeria Spark Protests and Ignites a Movement
In early October a video began to circulate on social media in Nigeria depicting a gruesome act of police brutality. The perpetrators of the police violence were from a notorious police unit called the Special Robbery Squad, or SARS.
As this video went viral, Nigerians voiced their own stories of being victimized by this police unit. The hashtag #ENDSARS was born.
But the story does not end there.
Olorunrinu Oduala, helped to transform this hashtag into a massive youth-led protest movement against police brutality in Nigeria. What started as a hashtag has become a concrete set of demands for police reform and accountability, around which millions of young people in Nigeria have mobilized.
This episode is supported in part from a grant from the Carnegie Corporation of New York to showcase African voices in peace and security issues.
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