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A few and final thoughts on #EndSARS 
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There& #39;s genuine anger by many Nigerians about police brutality and general insecurity. There& #39;s a feeling of helplessness at how aloof and unresponsive the government appears to be overall on the hardship faced by many Nigerians. 1/n
There& #39;s genuine anger by many Nigerians about police brutality and general insecurity. There& #39;s a feeling of helplessness at how aloof and unresponsive the government appears to be overall on the hardship faced by many Nigerians. 1/n
As in many parts of the world, it takes one issue to spark mass protests that express anger around deeper systemic issues: insecurity, corruption, unemployment, pol representation etc. The goals of #EndSARs https://abs.twimg.com/hashflags... draggable="false" alt=""> were initially focused around the police, but then began to expand 2/n
The risk always was that prolonged protests with expansive/broad objectives would draw participants who would superimpose other agendas. Managing the movement, the obj & messaging then becomes difficult. In a large, diverse country like Nigeria, that creates problems #EndSARS https://abs.twimg.com/hashflags... draggable="false" alt=""> 3/n
One critical mistake, IMO, was allowing the genuine anger around #EndSARS https://abs.twimg.com/hashflags... draggable="false" alt=""> to evolve into #BuhariMustGo. That was dangerous for a 1,000 reasons. Importantly, a rare opportunity to unite all Nigerians around insecurity, pervasive human rights abuses & govt incompetence was lost 4/n
The horrible incident in Lekki, is child& #39;s play compared to the routine and decades-long human rights abuses in the Niger-Delta, parts of Borno and the North East. There are tons of reports on excesses of security forces in these regions, with whole communities wiped out 5/n
On the Lekki incident, again we fall into the trap of giving an opportunity to delegitimize our causes when we use & #39;genocide& #39; and & #39;massacre& #39; recklessly. Something horrible happened there definitely and we should press for an independent enquiry to unravel the truth. 6/n
I want to stress the delegitimizing role of sharing fake news to & #39;influencers& #39; during #EndSARS https://abs.twimg.com/hashflags... draggable="false" alt="">. In the short term, the vector of false info gets thousands of RTs & even celebrity followers. In the longrun, we all loose the opportunity to build a genuine coalition for change 7/n
Finally, the time to start work on a genuine movement for change is now. The discontent of #EndSARS https://abs.twimg.com/hashflags... draggable="false" alt=""> is an opportunity to build a new, more representative platform to challenge this gerontocracy. Otherwise same people with organized structures will recycle themselves in 2023 8/END
