My Story: The cost of being a youth in Nigeria

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In Nigeria today is a memorable day for the souls lost during the #ENDSARS protest held on 20/10/20, making it a year today.

The protest was held due to police brutality and a special unit force called SARS, harassing youths due to having dressing expensive, using iPhones, riding cars or even having tattoos. These have been labeled a crime by them making the Nigerian youths scared of moving freely.

Also I was once a victim of police harassment and extortion, during my national service (NYSC) 2019, I decided to go home and see my parents because it has been a long time since I last saw them.

It was a cold cloudy day and decided to leave early due to the long journey, I had to even put on my NYSC uniform to identify I am a serving corps member to avoid any form of harassment, half way to the journey our bus was pulled over and there was a search, to my greatest surprise I was asked to come down this came as a shock to me because my uniform should give away my identity that am a “government property” and not to be touch or harassed.

The police man then asked me for my ID of which I provided and I had to explain where I am currently coming from, my PPA (place of primary assignment) and where I am going to, due to time wasting I had to stand my ground and ask why am being pulled out even with my uniform, the question asked was like an offence and immediately I was shoved back by him like he wanted me to retaliate and give him a reason to do what he wanted to do (whatever that may be).

After enough pleading from the other passengers, guess what? Yeah, he asked me to settle him or there will more time wasted, to avoid that I had to give him #500 and he said that wasn’t enough then I had to make it a thousand naira (1,000) before he could let me go.

So many of us have suffered dearly in different ways, some who had the courage to come out and some who had to be silent because we just had to let it go and move on because of the corrupt economy.

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The protest was held to stop all these but the government paid no heed to the protest and currently we are still suffering in the hands of police brutality, harassment and extortion. So today is an honorable for those who stood against it to say enough is enough.

There are security challenges every day and cost of living increasing every day for a common man, now we are facing brutality, harassment, extortion from the people who are supposed to protect us.

Now the question is what do we do? Who do we turn to? Who will protect us?

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