Chimamanda Adichie has addressed recent shootings taking place in Nigeria.
In an article posted on The New York Times, the author spoke about
what SARS officers have done to Nigerians over the years. She narrated
an unpleasant experience her cousin had with SARS and also spoke about
the Lekki toll gate shooting.
She wrote: "For years, the name SARS hung in the air here in Nigeria
like a putrid fog. SARS, which stood for Special Anti-Robbery Squad, was
supposed to be the elite Nigerian police unit dedicated to fighting
crime, but it was really a moneymaking terror squad with no
accountability. SARS was random, vicious, vilely extortionist. SARS
officers would raid bars or stop buses on the road and arbitrarily
arrest young men for such crimes as wearing their hair in dreadlocks,
having tattoos, holding a nice phone or a laptop, driving a nice car.
Then they would demand large amounts of money as 'bail.'
Narrating how her cousin was arrested, she wrote: "SARS officers once
arrested my cousin at a beer parlor because he arrived driving a
Mercedes.
"They accused him of being an armed robber, ignored the work ID cards
he showed them, took him to a station where they threatened to
photograph him next to a gun and claim he was a robber, unless he paid
them a large sum of money.
"My cousin is one of the fortunate few who could pay an amount large
enough for SARS, and who was released. He is not one of the many
tortured, or the many disappeared, like Chijioke Iloanya."
She went on to tell the story of Chijioke, a 20-year-old who "had
committed no crime" but was arrested in 2012 at a "child dedication
ceremony in Anambra State". He hasn't been seen since then.
Speaking on the End SARS protests, she said the call to end SARS has been going on for years but it was different this year.
"There have been End SARS protests, since 2016, but October 2020 was different, a tipping point had been reached.
"The protests signaled the overturning of convention — the protesters
insisted on not having a central leadership, it was social rather than
traditional media that documented the protests, and, in a country with
firm class divisions, the protests cut across class.
"The protests were peaceful, insistently peaceful, consistently
peaceful. They were organized mostly on social media by young Nigerians,
born in the 1980s and 1990s, a disaffected generation with the courage
to act. Their bravery is inspiring. They speak to hope and to the
possibility of what Nigeria could become.
"Of those involved in the organization, none is more remarkable than a
group called Feminist Coalition, set up by Nigerian feminists, who have
raised more than $180,000, and have provided legal aid, security and
food to protesters."
She continued: "But the Nigerian government tried to disrupt their fund-raising.
"The Nigerian government has reportedly accused Flutterwave, the
company through which the donation link was created, of accepting funds
from terrorists, even though it is clear that Feminist Coalition’s
members are not terrorists. Their fund-raising link suddenly stopped
working. Still, they persisted, and began to raise money through
Bitcoin."
She then addressed the violence directed at the End SARS protesters.
"From the capital city of Abuja to the small town of Ogbomosho, state
agents attacked and beat up protesters. The police killed a few and
detained many others, until social media and video evidence forced them
to release some of the detained. Still, the protesters persisted.
"The Lagos State government accused protesters of violence, but it
defied common sense that a protest so consistently committed to peaceful
means would suddenly turn around and become violent."
She wrote about thugs hijacking the peaceful protests.
"Protesters know they have everything to lose in a country like
Nigeria where the mere hint of violence gives free reign to murderous
security forces. Nigeria’s political culture is steeped in
state-sponsored thuggery. Politicians routinely hire thugs to cause
chaos, especially during elections, and many people believed that thugs
had been hired to compromise the protests.
"On social media, videos that attested to this — of thugs getting
into SUVs that belonged to the government, of hardened and hungry young
men admitting they were paid to join the protests and become violent.
Still, the protesters persisted."
She then addressed the tragic events of Tuesday, October 20, that saw some End SARS protesters killed and others injured.
Ms Adichie wrote: "At about noon on Oct. 20, 2020, about two weeks
into the protests, the Lagos State governor suddenly announced a curfew
that would begin at 4 p.m., which gave people in a famously
traffic-clogged state only a few hours to get home and hunker down.
"I feared that a curfew would provide an excuse for state violence,
that in the name of restoring order, the army and police would unleash
violence.
"Still, I was unprepared for the carnage that followed at the Lekki Toll Gate, the most prominent in Lagos.
"Government officials reportedly cut the security cameras, then cut
off the bright floodlights, leaving only a darkness heavy with
foreboding. The protesters were holding Nigerian flags, sitting on the
ground, some kneeling, some singing the national anthem, peaceful and
determined.
"A blurry video of what happened next has gone viral — soldiers walk
toward the protesters with a terrifyingly casual calm, the kind of calm
you cannot have if you are under attack, and they shoot, not up in the
air, which anyway would still be an atrocity when dealing with peaceful
protesters, but with their guns at arm level, shooting into a crowd of
people, shooting to kill. Sparks of gunfire taint the air. It is still
unclear how many died.
"Those at the scene say that the Nigerian army took away some bodies,
and prevented ambulances from getting in to help the injured, and that
there was still shooting going on hours later, in the morning."
She continued: "The Nigerian state has turned on its people. The only
reason to shoot into a crowd of peaceful citizens is to terrorize: to
kill some and make the others back down. It is a colossal and
unforgivable crime. The brazenness is chilling, that the state would
murder its citizens, in such an obviously premeditated way, as though
certain of the lack of consequences.
"It is anarchy, a friend told me. Nigeria is descending into chaos, another friend said."
She addressed Buhari's silence while the country descended into
chaos, writing: "The government of President Muhammadu Buhari has long
been ineffectual, with a kind of willful indifference.
"Under his leadership, insecurity has worsened; there is the sense
that Nigeria could very well burn to the ground while the president
remains malevolently aloof. The president himself has often telegraphed a
contemptuous self-righteousness, as though engaging fully with
Nigerians is beneath him.
"Twelve hours after soldiers shot peaceful protesters, Mr. Buhari still had not addressed the nation."
The award-winning author said she had been in her ancestral home in
Nigeria for weeks to bury her father. A week later, they buried her
father's only sister.
She explained that, immersed in her grief, she thinks about "those
who have been killed" and she thinks "of their families brutally
plunged into the terrible abyss of grief, made more terrible by the
knowledge that their loved ones were killed by their country. And for
what? Because they peacefully asked to be allowed to live."
Read her full opinion piece here.
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