(Presentation by Femi Falana SAN at the University of Lagos Mass Communication Alumni Association (UMCAA) Distinguished Lecture Series on September 30, 2021 at the Tayo Aderinokun Lecture Theatre, University of Lagos)
INTRODUCTION
I feel honoured to have been invited by distinguished communication professionals to present a lecture in an academic environment on communication strategy options. May be you selected me knowing that as a lawyer, communication is basic to my profession. I must be able to communicate with my clients otherwise, I may not get my briefs right. I must be able to communicate with the judge, otherwise, he or she will just be nodding his or her head and at the end of the day, throw out my case.However, I must confess that even with all my years at the bar and at least four decades communicating with the public, the quite brilliant and patriotic youths who organised and ran the 2020 ENDSARS campaign and mass protests, taught me a lot of lessons in communication strategies.THE ORIGINS OF POLICE BRUTALITY.Nigeria was cumulatively under military dictatorship for twenty eight years in its first thirty nine years of existence. Military rule is about impunity, and that culture permeated the various structures and strata of the society and filtered into its politics, culture and societal relations. One of the institutions that has most manifested this is the police which prides itself, not as a civil institution for the protection of lives and property and implementation of the law, but as a force, hence its official name, the Nigeria Police Force, NPF.Its emphasis on ‘force’ leaves Nigerians in no doubt that it can be both brutal and lawless and is an institution wedded to impunity. It is necessary to also point out that the origins of the NPF are colonial. It was the British colonialists’ arm of oppression and repression, and had only six years of post-independence Nigeria, before the military seized power and groomed it fully into what it has become today.The NPF developed a special anti-riot arm, the Mobile Police, better known as MOPOL. This arm assumes it has the right to torture and kill with impunity. Hence in the 1980s, the citizenry christened it ‘Kill-and-Go’ meaning it has the licence to kill and simply move on without fearing any repercussion.The MOPOL murdered Nigerians at will. One of its most infamous murders was that of Dele Udoh, a joint 400 metres world record holder who represented Nigeria at the 1980 Olympic Games. In 1981, he came into the country from his base in United States where he was a collegiate champion, to prepare for the 3rd International Association of Athletics Federations, IAAF World Championship scheduled for September, 1981 in Rome. He left the camp with some friends for a local barbecue meat spot in the Ojuelegba area of Lagos. He was interrogated by a policeman who executed him on the spot. He was 24 and left an 18-year old wife, Angela who was seven months pregnant. The killer cop was never tried.Despite such level of brutality, the State thought the MOPOL was not effective enough and went on to create other arms with the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, SARS becoming the most notorious as it operated like a body completely outside Nigerian laws and fundamental human rights. Its members were drawn from the police and the armed forces, ostensibly to combat armed robbery. But it profiled, tortured and killed Nigerians especially youths who appear prosperous or drove what to SARS, are expensive cars. This became the norm and it appeared the citizenry could do nothing about this. That was until 2020, thirty nine years after the murder of Dele Udoh.THE ENDSARS CAMPAIGN When George Zimmerman was acquitted in the United States after shooting a young Blackman, Trayvon Martin in 2012, three Black women; Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi decided in 2013 to create a movement to resist further killings of Black people. They began with a social media hashtag, #BlackLivesMatter. The movement stated that its: “mission is to eradicate White supremacy and build local power to intervene in violence inflicted on Black communities by the state and vigilantes.”It grew but it was not until the police murder of George Floyd on May 25, 2020 that the Black Lives Movement fully sprouted into life leading massive protests not just in the US but also across many countries.The ENDSARS Movement also had such innocuous beginnings. It began in 2017 as a Twitter campaign with the hashtag #EndSARS to demand the disbanding of the notorious police squad. But it took on a life of its own when from October 3-4, 2020 a video went viral. It showed a SARS officer in Ughelli, Delta state, shooting a young man, pushing the corpse out and driving off with the deceased’s car. Youths took to the social media to call for concrete action, and like storm, the protests began, sweeping through many towns and cities.COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES AND PREFERENCES The youths quickly gave the spontaneous protests some direction by picking protest venues, dates, providing public address systems, organising security, food and drinks, and platform for musicians and celebrities to address protesters and security. When government began to unleash armed thugs against them, they organised private security with expertise in self-defence and canine units.Their written messages were quite short and easily understood by the populace. Their oral communication was not esoteric, and given security concerns, were sometimes like a whispering campaign using the traditional word of mouth campaign. But it was in their use of Information and Communications Technology, ICT that they beat hands down, not just the government and its security services, but also us, the old or older generation. I had to admit the fact that I was part of the ‘Old School’With the ENDSARS youths, the Twitter was always clattering like an unseen, noiseless typewriter; text messages flooded our phones like ever flowing streams. Before you ask WhatsApp? Answers were being given. Instagram was flooded with pictures from various protest sites making it look like a carnival to which youths flooded. The protests were in many places streamed live thereby not just getting Nigerians and the rest of humanity well informed, but also limiting the ability of security forces to visit violence on the protesters. When sponsored armed thugs were unleashed on the peaceful but resolute protesters, people across the world could watch their arrival, deployment and attacks live. That was how we knew state buses were used to convey some of the hoodlums to the Alausa, Lagos attacks, and that some of the jeeps used to convey or co-ordinate the thugs in Abuja, belonged to an alleged serving Senator.Despite the conscious removal or disabling of the CCTV cameras and other monitoring equipment at the Lekki Tollgate before the October 20, 2021 invasion of the protest ground by armed soldiers, the Nigerian government could not cover up the atrocities. In fact, there was live streaming of the murderous invasion making it impossible for the government and its agencies including the Nigerian Army to deny the crimes against humanity perpetrated at the site.They also made good use of the conventional media, making rounds to television and radio stations as they did to newspapers. They issued statements and despite being ‘leaderless’ managed to build a consensus around basic demands which as the days went by and the protests became stronger, transformed from the basic ENDSARS demand to matters of good governance, accountability, security and fundamental human rights.They ensured that there were no partisan political influences by organising on-line crowd funding. In the first ten days, they raised over N40 million and the funds continued to rise. This was nothing compared to the very powerful message of solidarity they sent and displayed when a young lady, Jane Obiene with one limb, marched with the protesters in Abuja. A twitter user, Jonathan Odoba shared her photograph which had over 18,000 likes and 16,000 re-tweets. Then her image was re-tweeted by Dr Chinonso Egemba aka Aproko Doctor with the message that she had been unemployed since 2013 partly due to her physical challenge, so there should be crowd funding for her to procure a prosthetic leg. Within days, 1,376 persons donated over N7 million for her. In addition, a hospital offered her a free prosthetic leg! This case showed the power of solidarity and the masterful use of the social media by the youths for immediate, short and long term goals.To crown it all, the youths practised what they demanded from the political class by being expressly transparent and rendering accounts of all monies collected. So much so that even when the Federal Government tried to discredit the movement by combing through the accounts of the youths, they found nothing untoward or criminal. So in frustration, it seized the accounts of identifiable leaders of the movement. The movement mobilized lawyers who ensured that the accounts were defrozen. They also ensured the release of all those who were arrested and detained for participating in the protest, THE COUNTER STRATEGIES AND TACTICS OR GOVERNMENT.The Federal and many State Governments first approached the ENDSARS challenge by deploying their propaganda machinery, mainly their mass media to counter the movement. They talked mainly about the need for peace and for the youths to stop their protests as so-called hoodlums may or had infiltrated them. But this failed because the media organs of government are discredited and the mass of the citizenry view them with suspicion. So it was a case of a discredited messenger and message.Then the Buhari administration thought it could take the wind out of the sail and win public support by announcing the disbandment of SARS and the establishment of a new outfit called the Special Weapons and Tactics Team, SWAT. But for the youths, the demand for the end of SARS had become merely symbolic, more crucially, they wanted a real change in governance. Also, the public was not hoodwinked.Then it decided to meet the leaders of the movement to negotiate an end to the protests, but the movement was a deregulated one, and in a large sense, leaderless.Then it turned to some Civil Society leaders who the government tried to present to the public as credible negotiators. But this, despite the communiqué of the meeting, failed woefully as the negotiators had no influence whatsoever on the protesting youths.Then government decided to borrow from the communication strategies of the protesting youths by courting and bringing in a music star for negotiations. This was given quite wide media coverage, but all the musician could do, was read the demands of the protesting youths. He could not even make a commitment to campaign for the protests to end.Also, with the effective use of ICT, there were solidarity protests in countries such as Switzerland, Egypt, Germany, France, Germany, Belgium and Canada.When all the official strategies failed, sponsored armed thugs were unleashed on the protesters especially in Kano, Lagos and Abuja. But this also failed. In desperation, government sent armed police and soldiers to end the protests by using live ammunition. Scores of protesters were brutally massacred in Lagos, Abuja, Benin, Port Harcourt and Ogbomoso. The armed clampdown did not stop the protests, so the Federal and State Governments announced the establishment of judicial panels in all the states and the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja with promises to address the demands of the youths and compensate all victims of SARS brutality over the years. Some of the faces of the protests were appointed into the panels some of which are yet to wind up till date. In a methodical manner the lawyers of the movement have discredited the dubious agenda of the State to cover up the killings that took place during the protests. Initially, the Nigerian Army denied that soldiers were at the Lekki Toll Gate. Confronted with evidence by the youths the Army turned round to admit the presence of soldiers at Lekki. The Army claimed that the soldiers did not shoot at the protesters. But with evidence from eye witnesses and victims of killings by the soldiers the Army withdrew from the judicial commission of inquiry. However, an expert imported from the United Kingdom who claimed that the soldiers did not fire live ammunition was unable to explain how the purported blank bullets shot into the air left “sorrow, tears and blood” (apologies to Fela Anikulapo-Kuti).In spite of the denial of killings it has been revealed by Professor John Obafunwa, Consultant Pathologist to the Lagos State Government that 3 out of the 99 dead bodies dumped in the mortuaries were from Lekki. It was further revealed that 20 bodies marked “unknown” were allegedly brought from Ikoyi Correctional Centre. Contrary to Section.. of the Correctional Service Act 2019, no inquest was conducted in respect pertaining the circumstances of the killing of the 20 inmates. Apart from the detailed information of all inmates which are contained in their warrants the cells in every Correctional Centre are inspected on a daily basis. As no prison inmate is unknown in the 20 “unknown” dead bodies could not have been brought from Ikoyi Correctional Centre. In October 2019, the Nigerian Army announced plans to subject the Nigerian people to “positive identification” on the streets. I challenged the threat to the infringement of the fundamental rights of citizens to personal liberty and freedom of movement. Thus, in the judgment delivered by the Honourable Justice R. Aikawa on February 10, 2019 in the case of Femi Falana v Nigerian Army & Ors the Federal High Court declared the positive identification exercise illegal and unconstitutional. The Court granted an order of perpetual injunction restraining the army from usurping police powers by maintaining law and order in the country. Out of sheer contempt a detachment of the Nigerian Army invaded the Lekki Toll Gate on October 20, 2020 under the pretext of enforcing the curfew imposed by the Lagos State Government. It is interesting to note that the judicial commissions of inquiry have been looking for justification for the illegal action of the armed troops. In the same vein, the commissions have failed to pay attention to Section 83 (4) of the Police Establishment Act, 2020 which has imposed a legal obligation on the police to provide security for citizens who take part in public protests. If the police had provided security for the protesters in Lekki and other venues of the protests the so called hoodlums would not have the peaceful rallies into urge of violence. SOME LESSONS OF THE ENDSARS UPRISING The ENDSARS youth movement demonstrated that the use of the media, especially ICT is not only fundamental to the success of governance, business, social relations and protests, but also, that government can no longer shutdown the media space as it pleases. On June 2, 2021 the government tried its hand on banning social media by suspending Twitter indefinitely. But it has been like trying to hold down the rainbow as Nigerians who wish, simply bypassed this by connecting to the Virtual Private Network, VPN.It also taught that in communication, there should be some verisimilitude in language even if it be propaganda, otherwise, it fails.Again, the protests showed that communication needs to be relevant to the recipient if it is to be impactful.It also taught that it is not only the message that is important, the messenger also should be; a person seen as untruthful or unworthy will not be believable even if he is telling the gospel truth.But one great truth the ENDSARS youth taught is that a focused, united and determined movement can exert the change they desire in society.The greatest lesson is that the youths did not allow the State to divide them along ethnic and religious lines. Therefore, the youths should frustrate the desperate moves by the political class to turn the 2023 election into a regional affair. Politicians should not be allowed to divert the attention of the Nigerian people from the crisis of underdevelopment confronting the nation. The politicians must be compelled to address the rejection of electronic voting, insecurity of life and property, poverty and unemployment, lack of access to education, health and other social services, infrastructural decay, control of the national economy by imperialism etc. Every political party should make a commitment to the observance of human rights and implementation of the fundamental objectives enshrined in Chapter two of the Nigerian Constitution. Finally, permit me to call on the youths, workers and other oppressed people to be involved in the affairs of the country. Since a people united can never be defeated the youths and all patriotic forces should get organised to end police brutality, extrajudicial killing of innocent people by State agents, terrorists and gunmen. Thank you.
