Realities of Today Blog: A Nigerian Initiative for Enlightenment

It came as a shock to me and many other Nigerians waking up to the news of some unarmed youths shot at by security officials at the most coordinated protest ground in Lagos, Nigeria. The exact figures of fatalities were unaccounted for considering some middle grounds. These were based on the controversial news spread by the protesters, the state government, the Nigerian Army and the Presidency across the mass media.  Mr Governor said, "forces beyond his direct control were responsible for the heinous act" in his speech on the 21st October 2020. He went further to say there were no fatalities recorded. The Nigerian Army denied involvement in the horrific scene while the Presidency also maintained the same ground as others making the storyline more complicated.  However, there were a series of events possibly justifying that the horrible attack on harmless protesters were deliberate actions to frustrate youths clarion call to end police brutality and bad governance in the count

#EndSARS movement is not a new development in Nigeria as it's first call dated back to the year 2017. The movement started and usually ends by the declarations of the government that the unit Special Anti Robbery Squad (SARS) has been disbanded from the Nigerian Police. The same thing has been happening whenever the youths raised an eyebrow on the inhumane practices of this unit from the year 2017 up until 2019. This year's clarion call to end the brutal activities of SARS took a different shape, approaches and tactics from across the Western, Eastern, and Southern part of Nigeria while the Northerners were on the other side of the reality. What then were the keynotes from #EndSARS movement so far? Kindly feed your minds below. The acclaimed lazy youths by the President has risen in one voice regardless of their sociocultural diversities to speak against the brutal nature of the Nigerian police, especially those representing the unit SARS. The youths were so organised, well-coo

# EndSARS campaign today,  # EndSARS campaign tomorrow won't really give us the result we need in Nigeria. What then is the way forward? We all know the way forward to this situation if only we can make it happen. First and foremost, it is disheartening to think, hear or even see that the body saddled with the responsibility to protect lives and properties is in charge of its threat, extortion, brutality and killings at the extreme. I hereby use this opportunity to join others to condemn the acts of police brutality at any nooks and crannies in Nigeria. It is indeed a shameful act at this age and time for the Special Anti Robbery Squad (SARS) to extort, intimidate, brutalise, and at the extreme kill resourceful youths under the assumption of discharging their duties. There are no excuses for that but we need to understand that this act of terrorism in the Western and Eastern part of Nigeria is not an issue in the Northern part of Nigeria. Maybe, we can recategorise the Nigerian ter

Without mincing words, corruption among youths in Nigeria today is currently at its peak. An average Nigerian youth today believes they have to cut corners before they make it in life. This belief has resulted in crimes of different kinds among the youths - where cyber-crime called yahoo yahoo  is the most common of all. This crime according to those involved requires serious intelligence as they relate to people - often called "clients" on the Internet. The rapport usually starts on a friendly note but after a while, several lies/pretence comes into play in order to extort money from the party abroad. In the quest to curb these crimes at least because there is no crime-free society, the Nigerian police created a special unit saddled with the responsibility of curbing this act among youths. This unit was tagged Special Anti Robbery Squad (SARS). At first, when the unit began operation, they were as effective as the Economic Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) of Obasan

According to the National Bureau of Statistics, the youths constitute 54% of the Nigerian population out of which about 60% are unemployed. Hence, the participation of the youths in cybercrime may be linked to the saying that “an idle hand is the devil workshop”. In addition, there have been reports that the motivation for engaging in cybercrime can be traced to how Nigeria and Nigerians were treated during her colonisation process. Hence, there is an erroneous belief that defrauding the “whites” is an indirect channel of retrieving what was stolen from Nigeria. Irrespective of the reason for engagement in cybercrime activities, a major point here is that it is an illegal act, punishable by both local and international nation.  The National Security Adviser (NSA) declared that Nigeria lost about 127 billion Naira as at 2016 to cybercrime activities. Also, reports had it that over a thousand lawsuits have been placed on some Nigerian youths over defrauding foreigners through hypo