Security
EndSARS: Second wave of protests commence online, while Police send officers to prevent offline protests
The EndSARS protests have resumed, but this time largely online.
Apart from Mushin, Osogbo and some parts of Abuja that held physical protests, other Nigerians took to social media on Monday morning to continue the demand against police brutality and poor governance.
The over 130,000 tweets with the EndSARS hashtag on Monday morning pushed the hashtag to one of Twitter’s trend lists.
Some protesters believe that the EndSARS movement has surpassed a demand to end police brutality and morphed into a wider call for better governance.
In response to these protests, police officers and other security operatives were deployed to Lekki, Opebi and other prime spots of the protests.
Soldiers and policemen were said to have arrived at the tollgate in four trucks on Monday morning.
Between October 7 – 20, thousands of Nigerians marched in Lagos and other cities to demand an end to the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, or SARS, a police unit accused of extrajudicial killings and abuses.
The government announced the unit had been disbanded, but many Nigerians are skeptical, as officials have promised an end to the unit and its alleged abuses before.
The protest was hijacked by hoodlums who took advantage of the protests to unleash violence in the state.
Following the abrupt end of the protests when soldiers opened fire at unarmed protesters for defying the Lagos state curfew, the Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu said that the police would prevent another protest on the scale of the EndSARS protests.
President Muhammadu Buhari also said that the government would prevent a repeat of the protests.
