What Time Is It, Nigeria?

 I wrote some pieces, musings on country, that were published as opinion on 774ngr.com. As the year 2020 wraps up, I am bringing those pieces home, among my other musings, especially because the issues are still unsolved. This piece was written on October 23rd, 2020, in the aftermath of Nigeria's government's violent response to the #EndSARS protest.

“A voice is heard in Ramah, mourning and great weeping, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted because they are no more.” – Jeremiah ben Hilkiah, Jewish Prophet

Photo by Adrien Robert on Unsplash

Photo by Chris Knight on Unsplash

In 1938, a British dramatist, Patrick Hamilton, published a stage play – Gas Light. Gaslight is a type of lamp that is fuelled by burning gas, and that was the type of lighting used in upper-middle-class London in 1880, where Jack Manningham and his wife Bella lived in an apartment complex. The apartment above theirs was once occupied by a wealthy woman, Alice Barlow, who was murdered for her jewels. Nightly, Bella would hear footsteps, and the gaslight in the house would dim. Her husband, Jack, who was consistently absent at those times, and upon his return, when his wife would bring it up, he would convince her that she was imagining the footsteps and dimming lights. Meanwhile, it was his footsteps going up to the deceased Alice Barlow’s house, in search of her jewels, and when he would turn on the gas lights there, the lights in his own house would dim. That is the origin of the term “Gaslighting”.

Abusers use gaslighting – persistent denial, contradiction, misdirection, and outright lying – to make their victims question their sanity. They assault their victim and make them feel as if they imagined the assault, or as if what was done to them is normal and not abusive. Gaslighting is something Nigerians should be familiar with but may not recognise because they are still disoriented.

The Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) of the Nigeria Police Force are infamous for harassment, extortion, wrongful arrests, torture, and murders. The hashtag #EndSARS was created sometime in 2017, as a plea for justice. The government had disbanded the same unit in 2017, 2018, 2019 and early in 2020. Yet, like Hydra who grew two more heads every time he was beheaded, SARS would rise again, with other units like the Special Anti-Cultism Squad.

Two days after Nigeria’s 60th Independence Day, a video of SARS officers shooting a young man in Ughelli, Delta State, and leaving him for dead by the roadside went viral. Police authorities claimed that the video was fake, but other videos of SARS officials assaulting people went viral. Earlier on September 10, 2020, Ifeoma Stella Abugu was arrested by SARS operatives in Abuja, in place of her fiancé. Four days after her arrest, her family received the news of her death from the police, and later autopsy results reportedly revealed that she was raped and tortured before she died. Young people in Nigeria took to social media and engaged in conversations using the hashtag #EndSARS. By October 8, the peaceful demonstrations started and gradually spread across Nigeria and beyond. The protesters were frequently harassed by State actors, and there were some fatalities, beginning with Jimoh Isiaq in Ogbomoso, who was a bystander.   

The Inspector-General of Police announced the fifth abolition of SARS, but the young Nigerians insisted that unless talk was backed with action, the protests would continue. They refused to give in to pressures to appoint leaders and negotiate. The demands were clear – End SARS (not rebranding), justice for victims of police brutality, reform of the police apparatus, including salary increase for the police officers. The demands were not negotiable. It should have been unconscionable for these demands to be negotiated. The protesters adopted protocols to ensure that the demonstrations were devoid of violence. To counter the violence which they received from police officers and sponsored thugs in some protest locations, they engaged private security firms. The government did not show good faith by allowing peaceful protests and providing protection for the protesters, yet there were calls for the protests to end.

Photo by Art by Oye

On Tuesday, October 20, 2020, the Governor of Lagos State, considered the economic nerve centre of Nigeria, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, declared a 24-hours curfew some minutes before noon, as of 4pm same day. The reason given was that arsonists, hoodlums and anarchists were hiding under the #EndSARS protest to unleash mayhem on the State. On Twitter, in response to the Governor’s tweet announcing the curfew, people asked what the consequences of breaching the curfew was and expressed frustration about the short notice of the curfew and how traffic congestion would cause many to be stranded and breach the curfew. The government did not announce any extension of the curfew start-time. Before 4pm same day, protesters circulated reports, accompanied with videos and pictures, of people disabling cameras at the Lekki Toll Gate, one of the venues of the #EndSARS protests. There was no response or clarification from the Lagos State Government or the Lekki Concession Company (LCC) which is responsible for the toll gate. The protesters there resolved that they would spend the curfew at the toll gate, and as they had done several times during the protests, they waved the Nigerian flag and sang the national anthem.

Some minutes before 7pm of the same night, the lights at the toll gate went out, and some persons in military-type vehicles and dressed in military outfits arrived at the toll gate. Without engaging the peaceful protesters, they shot at them. About the same time, the Lagos State Government announced that the curfew commencement was extended to 9pm. This announcement, however, did not receive as much attention online as the live Instagram broadcast by DJ Switch, who was one of the protesters at the toll gate that night. From the live stream, over 100,000 people watched as people dressed in military outfits opened fire on the peaceful protesters as they sang the national anthem and waved the Nigerian flag, hoping that that would strike a chord with the army officials who had sworn allegiance to Nigeria and the people of Nigeria. As we watched the broadcast with horror, we heard gunshots, fading voices of protesters still singing the national anthem, screams of terror, last prayers, and then silence, and then more screams. We saw people bleeding and saw people who appeared lifeless. The people who were at the scene of the massacre saw their comrades die. Rescue ambulances were blocked from reaching the injured victims. Amnesty International claims that at least 12 people were killed and that the death toll was likely to be higher.

Many of us kept vigil that night. We called loved ones to confirm their whereabouts. We panicked about unanswered calls, hoping that when the phone did not ring, it was because of dead batteries. We rallied help for the survivors of the massacre. We wept. Some of us shut down emotionally, unable to process the evil of the night. And before dawn, we saw the Lagos Governor’s Twitter thread, with and photo splash with the victims of the massacre in hospitals who wisely turned their faces away from him. He attributed Tuesday’s terror to “forces beyond their direct control” and acknowledged that there were 30 victims hospitalised. Later that Wednesday morning, he gave a state broadcast, where he said that nobody died in the shootout, though he ordered that flags in public buildings in Lagos be flown at half-mast in solidarity with victims of the #EndSARS protests. Do people fly flags at half-mast where there have been no deaths? He later acknowledged the death of one victim, and then a second.

That was only the beginning of gaslighting though. The Nigerian Army branded news reports and tweets about the massacre as Fake News. Assuming rogue elements disguised as military officials were responsible for the massacre, how come the army did not respond to defend their integrity and Nigerians, even though there are several military bases around the vicinity?

The deputy governor of Lagos State shared LCC’s statement, and that tolling equipment was looted during the protests before that tragic Tuesday. Looting occurred at the toll gate, and LCC kept quiet about it until later, even when the news media reported on the revenue losses due to the closure of the tollgate? The statement from LCC, echoed by the deputy governor and later by the governor claimed that it was “analog BOSCH tolling devices”, not CCTV cameras, that were removed. Perhaps they did not expect us to know that “analog BOSCH tolling devices” are cameras that are supposed to be of superior imaging quality to the CCTV cameras. He also referred to fake news. In truth, there have been fake news and false alarms from recently created parody accounts and trolls. But it is not farfetched to wonder whether those could have been sponsored to discredit the truth.

Although the purpose of the curfew was to restrain arsonists, hoodlums and anarchists who were unleashing “mayhem on the state”, the Wednesday after the massacre saw lootings, arsons, and killings all over the state. The police who had been shooting at peaceful protesters during the protests, and the
“soldiers” who shot at unarmed peaceful protesters at the tollgate could not stop the destruction all over. Other states in Nigeria repeated the same template – peaceful protests were contaminated by violent thugs, the police force was unable to apprehend any of the criminal elements, prison break or attempted prison break happened, State Governor blamed the erstwhile peaceful protest and then declared a 24-hour curfew.

In all of these, the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria was silent. When he finally speaks about 48 hours after the Lekki Massacre, the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces does not mention the massacre. Instead, he claims that the loss of human lives, sexual violence, prison breaks, and the destruction of public and private properties was executed in the name of the #EndSARS protests. The President’s statement is an attempt to discredit the legitimate protests, especially because the protests were anything but violent, even when the protesters were attacked on many sides. They instead engaged private security firms and collaborated to provide legal aid, ambulances, and pay hospital bills for the injured. The President cast further doubts on the evidence of state-sanctioned violence when he cautioned the international community to “seek to know all the facts available.” Then the one who truncated Nigeria’s democracy in 1983 threatened protesters that further protests would amount to “truncating our nascent democracy” and undermining national security.

Gaslighters always have sinister intentions. They aim to make their victims undermine their confidence in their capacities, judgement, and possibly, belief in their cause. They also target their victims’ self-esteem, making the victims dependent on the abusers for longer. That is the goal of the government of Nigeria. They will make us think that the tragedies of our collective history are our fault and that they have nothing to do with it. They will erase evidence of their culpability, and where they cannot erase, they will deny. They will call the truth fake news, and they will buy accomplices from among us to support their narrative. They will attempt to confuse us and deceive onlookers with performative acts of benevolence and postures of sympathy. When we remain unperplexed, they will terrorise us and call us crazy, in their bid to break us, to cower us. They will make us question our sanity. When we refuse to break, they will isolate us from the rest of the world, make us disappear, torture us and push us to suicide, or they will destroy us and tell the world that we never existed.

The Teacher, son of David, king in Jerusalem, wrote: There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens. In Hamilton’s play, in the end, time was up for Jack. Rough is the game-changer. Ironically, Rough is a police detective who convinces Bella that she is not imagining the footsteps and dimming lights. He convinces Bella to collaborate with him in exposing Jack as the murderer that he is. Bella plays a fast one on Jack. She pretends to help him escape arrest, then she gives him up, reminding him that she is crazy after all, and is not accountable for her actions.

We saw what we saw; our eyes did not deceive us. We are not crazy. We must remain defiant and not cower to their bullying. We must repeat the truth as many times as possible! We should not have to negotiate for justice and good governance, but we must realise that our oppressors are immoral and illogical, so we will have to keep demanding until we can recover the soul of Nigeria from their tight fists. Maybe we can hope that the mourning will not be in vain. Maybe we can hope that we will not have to weep over our children the way our parents have had to weep over our dead brothers and sisters. Or maybe it is not our time?