CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
A nation’s national security is predicated on her national interest as well as her strategic calculations within the region and in the global arena. For us to have an effective and result-oriented national security therefore, the socio-economic terrain and the enterpreneural needs of the nation must be well enhanced, as these are catalysts that propel growth and development, which in turn assures the well- being of the citizenry. This cannot be achieved by one sector alone, a combination of all elements of national power and our strategic alliance would have to be harnessed. Thus the security enforcement remain a vital element in the overall national security strategy. (Adaobi, 1991).
As of internal security, police forces are trained to tackle internal security in Nigeria. Police involvement in the internal security operations is inevitable as the need for higher level of aggression continues to reveal itself. Although, this has been the case ever since Nigeria was formed and it also continued throughout the colonial period, the recent occurrence of terrorism witnessed in the country has further justified the need for police participation in internal security operations. (Lafiagi, 2001).
Internal security Operations are those acts carried out by the domestic security agents such as the Police, Customs Services, Immigration Services, and others for the purpose of containing domestic threats to the security of the country. These threats often relate to dire cases of riots, demonstrations, strikes, communal clashes, terrorism, and the likes, which normally fall outside the constitutional duty of the military (Azinge, 2013:4).
Affirming this, section 4 of the Police Act of Nigeria provides the general duties of the police as the preservation of law and order, the protection of life and property and the due enforcement of all laws and regulations with which they are directly charged within the society. Internal security operations are therefore designed to handle internal conflicts in a country. In Nigeria, communal /ethnic clashes, religious conflicts and recently acts of terrorism have necessitated their involvement in internal security operations.
However, Police duties which includes the preservation of law and order, the protection of life and property and the due enforcement of all laws and regulations, unfortunately some overzealous police forces have been further to have engaged in acts that are contrary to the roles they are assigned to play in the Nigeria societies (Kemi, 2020).
The Nigeria Police was first established in 1820 but it was over a century later in 1930 that the northern and southern police forces merged into the first national police force; called the Nigeria Police Force. In 1992, the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) was formed whose function was to combat armed robbery and other serious crimes. Before that, anti-robbery was the responsibility of the Nigerian Police Force generally although, from 1984, anti-robbery units existed separately as part of different states’ criminal investigation departments. Other special units, which went by different names at different times, included the intelligence response team, special tactical squad, counterterrorism unit and force intelligence unit, formed to tackle rising violent crime following the end of the Nigerian civil war in 1970. (Ajazel, 2020).
By the early 1990s, armed robbers and bandits were terrorising Lagos and southern Nigeria. Police officer called Simeon Danladi Midenda was in charge of the anti-robbery unit of the criminal investigation department in Benin, southern Nigeria, at the time. He had some success in combatting armed robbery, earning a recommendation from the then inspector general of police. With crime on the rise in Lagos, Midenda was transferred there and tasked with uniting the three existing anti-robbery squads operating in the former federal capital into one unit in a bid to break the stronghold of armed gangs. As the new sheriff in town, equipped with 15 officers and two station wagons, Midenda formed an amalgamated unit and named it the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) in 1992. (Ajazel, 2020).
In the early days of the unit, combat-ready SARS officers operated undercover in plain clothes and plain vehicles without any security or government insignia and did not carry arms in public. Their main job was to monitor radio communications and facilitate successful arrests of criminals and armed robbers such as Chukwudi Onuamadike as best known as “Evans” who was arrested in 2017 after the police spent five years tracking him and placed a 30 million naira ($80,000) reward on his head.
For 10 years, SARS only operated in Lagos, but by 2002, it had spread to all 36 states of the federation as well as the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. It was counted as one of the 14 units under the Nigerian Police Force Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department. Its function included arrest, investigation and prosecution of suspected armed robbers, murderers, kidnappers, hired assassins and other suspected violent criminals. Emboldened by its new powers, the unit moved on from its main function of carrying out covert operations and began to set up roadblocks, extorting money from citizens. Officers remained in plain clothes but started to carry arms in public. Over time, the unit has been implicated in widespread human rights abuses, extrajudicial killings, torture, arbitrary arrests, unlawful detention and extortion. (Bode, 2020).
SARS officers then allegedly moved on to targeting and detaining young men for cybercrime or being “online fraudsters”, simply on the evidence of their owning a laptop or smartphone, and then demanding excessive bail fees to let them go. In 2016, Amnesty International documented its own visit to one of the SARS detention centres in Abuja, situated in a disused abattoir. There, it found 130 detainees living in overcrowded cells and being regularly subjected to methods of torture including hanging, starvations, beatings, shootings and mock executions.
Hence, due to these human rights abuses, Nigerians say they have had enough. Since 2017, protests have been building momentum across Nigeria, stemming from online advocacy to street protests. The anger about the unit’s activities culminated in a nationwide protest on October, 2020, after a video emerged on social media of police officers to be members of the SARS unit, allegedly killing an unarmed young man. This prompted Nigerian youths to troop to Twitter, calling on the Federal Government for police reform with the hashtag, EndSARS, Endpolicebrutality, and many more. The hashtag trended continuously on Twitter as Nigerian youths aired their pain and experiences online. A viral message broadcast on social media suggested men of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad SARS had gunned down a Nigerian youth, snatched his car, and sped off with it. As the video spread on Social media, the hashtag ENDSARS started to garner momentum as more young people demanded an end to the brutal police unit that has for years brutalized young Nigerians. (Adekunle, 2020).
On the 4th of October, 2020, the Nigerian Police Force, through the Inspector General of Police banned of SARS members and Tactical Squads from carrying out routine patrols and other conventional low-risk duties, stop and search duties, checkpoints, mounting of roadblocks, traffic checks, etc with immediate effect. Moreover, on 7th October 2020, youths in Lagos State came out for a three-day protest to call for the disbandment of theSpecial Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) unit of the Nigeria Police Force, as part of the push for reforms in the police system to put an end to the extra-judicial activities of the agency. Youths were seen marching to the Force Headquarters at Ikeja, carrying placards with various inscriptions such as “Protect, not exploit”, “Nigeria police stop killing us,” amongst other printed messages (nairametrics.com). This was the start of a 14-day protest that eventually turned violent and hijacked by hoodlums and resulted to the destruction, vandalizing and looting of public and private properties and Small and Medium Enterprises in the country.(Adekunle, 2020). Therefore, this intend to assess the Implications of Endsars protest to internal security in Nigeria, using a case study of Lagos State.
1.2 Statement of the problem
In contemporary global system, nation-states have come under threats that have the potentials to undermine their national security. These threats emanate from both internal security. However internal insecurity or counter-terrorism in Nigeria suffers from the problem that plagues policing. Extrajudicial killings of civilians with impunity by security forces are among the factors that have misguided the country into a decade-long counter-insurgency against Boko Haram. The first leader of the group, Mohammed Yusuf, died unjustly in police custody that escalated Boko Haram attacks in the country. The brutal crackdown by the military that followed led to thousands of legal cases related to violent extremism which the criminal justice system is still struggling to process. Despite disproportionate budgetary allocations to the security sector, counter-insurgency operations have had limited success. Analysts have consistently pointed to the role of conflict entrepreneurs as one explanation.
The EndSARS protests come on the heels of similar incidents across the continent and globally, with agitations against police excesses. One of the things that accompanies protest of group of people in any polity is the disruption of movement and businesses of people. For people to protest, there are many stimulants to it and one major of them all is for a change to something good and better outside the ill ones that the people have been subjected to. A protest is practically a demonstration by the public to portray their expression of objection or disapproval towards an idea or action in a polity. This demonstration can take different forms but the apex of it is taking to the street by the populace to publicly expressed their grievances to the government.
The treatment of the Nigerian Police Force Unit known as Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) on the citizens of Nigeria and their brutality on youths stimulated the agitation of the youth crying out for the disbandment of SARS which has done no good to youths rather has brought about killings and kidnapping of youths, harassing youths publicly by looking into their phones, checking at the type of car they are driving, the quality of clothes they wear, accessing their emails, facebook pages and whatsapp and profiling them to see whether they are fraudsters or not and as well stealing from them.
The discontent of the youths to the brutality of the SARS metamorphosed into the EndSARS protests in Lagos State which was a peaceful campaign calling on the government to disband the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) unit and as well as to see the reforming of the police force. The protest spread like wild fire to other states like Oyo, Osun, Ondo, Edo, Ogun, Ekiti, Imo, Anambra, River, Enugu etc, in Nigeria. It started as a peaceful demonstration by thousands of youths but later turned into chaos after the protests were hijacked by hoodlums and led to mob attacks on security personnel, killings of protesters, vandalizing and looting of public and private properties and shops. The peaceful protest hijacked by hoodlums became threats to external security that resulted to thedestruction properties in the name of EndSARS protest in the state. Small and Medium Enterprises were vandalized and looted during the EndSARS protests. This has led to loss of valuable resources and properties belonging to the victims of the looted shops. The blocking of roads by protesters and curfew declared by the Lagos state government resulted to restriction of movement and has contributed to reduction on level of demand and supply in businesses and high transportation fare.
For this cause, this study seeks to assess of the ENDSARS protest and it’s implications on internal security in Nigeria, with the recent ENDSARS protest in Lagos State as a case study.
