End SARS: See how Nigeria anti-police brutality protests go global
Nigerians don dey protest against police brutality for many years now, so why e bi say dis October protest gain international attention and support like never before?
For di last two weeks, di strong support wey Nigerian protester get for street show face for Twitter too wit different-different hashtags dem, but di main one na #EndSARS. Di full meaning of SARS na Special Anti-Robbery Squad. No be today wey dem just start to dey accuse SARS officers of robbing, attacking and even killing pipo but dis new protest start for di beginning of October. Nigerian technology news site Tech Cabal track di date of di protest to October 3. Na one tweet from pesin wey get just 800 followers na im receive more dan 10,000 retweets: Di Tweeter, wey call himself Chinyelugo, tell BBC say normally im dey keep low profile on Twitter but personally police don harass am before so wen im friend tell about another police attack im ginger am to tweet about am. "If Sars see you as a young pesin wey dey successful with nice car, dem go harass you and collect money from you hand," na wetin im tok. Im later tweet one video wey im claim say be one young man wey police shoot. Di video dey like say na from one Instagram story post from one account wey di pesin describes themselves as Azakaza Sarah - brand ambassador. Her posts normally na mixture of pose for fishnet tights and promoting body scrubs. E dey possible say di video don pass from di pesin wey film am through many different pipo, and WhatsApp groups before e reach Azakaza Sarah. But now e dey Twitter. Most of di protesters na young pipo Some pipo wey Nigerian tori pipo dey call influencers for social media, wey also call themselves "accidental leaders" don carri di mata for dia head. BBC Nduka Orjinmo say di real ginger start on Wednesday 7 October, four days afta di tweet about di man wey dem shoot, wen Rinu Oduala, one woman wey call herself media strategist, beg oda protesters to spend di night outside government house for Lagos. For di early days of di protest BBC Nigeria correspondent Mayeni Jones observe di interesting digital protest wey fit explain why dis protest get so much more attention pass di previous ones. Di Organizers dem bin dey shade brands and tori pipo, dem go tag dia twitter handles for tweets and ask dem why dem no dey cover di protests. See di one wey dem do cable company DSTV. Oda tweeters pile up dem begin copy and paste text of di tweet and tweet for dia own accounts. E bin dey very effective - within one day na so e begin trend and more pipo begin dey tok about am na wetin she tok. Den di protesters start to blast celebrities dem. On Friday 9 October Dípò Awójídé, wey describe himself for Twitter as senior lecturer in strategy, strategically tweet to Nigerian-British boxer Antony Joshua and Star Wars actor John Boyega to ask them to tweet about it. For im request, im compare di protests to Black Lives Matter protests wey happun early dis year. Again, plenty Twitter accounts bombard di tweet underneath. Just ova an hour later, Boyega agree. Dem also bombard Nigerian musicians Davido and Wizkid wey dey very popular with messages about di protests and dem follow closely afta Boyega tweet im support for di protesters By the end of that day di #EndSars hashtag begin trending worldwide. For weekend celebrities wey no get any connection to Nigeria, like German-Turkish Arsenal player Mesut Özil, also tweet im support. Özil alone get 25 million followers for Twitter. Di discussion on Twitter reach fi peak of 661,340 tweets on Sunday 11 October. By the middle of di next week, di CEO of Twitter himself, Jack Dorsey, tweet, come ask for donations to di protesters. Two days later, him tweet one new Twitter emoji, wey show raised fist with Nigeria flag colours, wey dem design especially for di protests. As of Friday 16 October, e don nearly reach 3.3 million tweets with 744,000 retweets of posts wit #EndSARS hashtag.