Òrò tó wà nlè - End SARS / Sixty years and counting
Òrò tó wà ńlè as a literal translation from Yoruba to English - the issue that is on the ground, the issue that is at stake or the next issue as suggested by google translate.
I do much reflecting and this is yet another point of such. For the past few days I have been thinking about what to say and how to say it on the matter of what is currently happening in my motherland to stop police brutality through the movement to #EndSARS whilst simultaneously moving through various stages of grief due to the loss of a loved one. It is becoming increasingly evident that one of the biggest lessons of the start of this new decade will prevail as grief being something we never truly leave and rather something we continually cycle through.
At the start of this very month of October, Nigeria marked its 60th year of independence but we have to ask - independence from what? This year has been one of revolt and revolution, the world watched and participated in a conversation (and some action) about the fact that Black lives do indeed matter. The world collectively watched all that happened in the US with parallels being drawn in the UK as people chanted “say their names” globally. In the midst of all that was happening in the Western world, Africa was speaking - but who heard? In the midst of BLM, depending on where you locate yourself in the landscape of the internet, there were calls from Nigeria, calls that were enveloped in a sea of black squares and graphic images to better support how it is that we move through these foreign, but now familiar spaces. But months on as the majority of world seemingly feels it has participated in an ‘effort’ for racial justice, Nigeria a country with a population of over 200 million, my country, is weeping and grieving internally.
Tuesday 20 October 2020 marked yet another devastating mar in Nigeria’s collective history as the #EndSARS movement took a turn in a direction that we all knew was possible, but prayed wouldn’t materialise when unarmed protesters were slain by Nigerian forces at the Lekki toll gate in Lagos in what is now trending across social media platforms with #LekkiMassacre and #LekkiGenocide. The images are graphic and it brings me back to a summer of terror, yet this time, it is not just lifeless Black bodies on the ground, but Nigerian youth who sit on the side of the streets with their heads split open, large flaps of skin hanging by a thread, youth corpers who lay on the ground dying with multiple bullet wounds and their blood staining their white t-shirts. Images of seriously injured protestors in hospital beds under tweets begging people to donate to the large hospital bills needed to treat them, images instructing people how to take care of injuries because of the likelihood that emergency services will be turned away as they were on 20/10/20. All of this, because they dared to speak, because they dared to conceive of a Nigeria better than the one that exists at present? Although a complicated history, between 1957 - 60 as the former regions of Nigeria under British colonial rule conceived a vision for a untied and newly independent Nigeria, this cannot be what they dreamed of, to see the bodies of its children scattered for defending our post independence vision.
Uzo Egonu, Woman in Grief, 1968
Once again, we are faced with the reality that there are many who left their homes that faithful morning and they will not return. I think of the mothers of those protesters and think of Woman In Grief (1968) by Uzo Egonu and draw parallels in thinking of the intervention of the Nigerian forces in the second battle of Onitsha, the same year the work was made and how it may mirror the feelings of devastation that were felt immediately yesterday and will continue to be felt in our country.
In thinking of familial relations, I wrestle with the parent and child dynamic in thinking about how our nation functions. I am reminded of this quote from Chinua Achebe’s Africa’s Tarnished Name (1998) and use it to give context for why this years independence was merely marked and not a full on celebration as many of us would normally engage in bar the restraints of the pandemic, Nigeria’s youth have had enough.
“Our 1960 national anthem, given to us as a parting gift by a British housewife in England, had called Nigeria ‘our sovereign motherland’. The current anthem, put together by a group of Nigerian intellectuals and actually worse than the first one, invokes the father image. But it has occurred to me that Nigeria is neither my mother nor my father. Nigeria is a child. Gifted, enormously talented, prodigiously endowed, and incredibly wayward.”
The irony and the utter annoyance that rings true in referring to ‘Africa’s giant’ as a wayward child, in 2020, when in actuality our ‘beloved’ country is the age mate of many of our parents, some of whom wont be able to hold or speak to their children again. Even more vexingly a country that is age mates with our politicians, some of whom find themselves in positions of power again and causing yet more unsightly stains in Nigeria’s history. For a country whose motto is Unity, Faith, Peace and Progress, this reeks of stagnation. For years I have defended Nigeria to my parents in conversation, begging them to look at the external factors that have contributed to its current state but today I too am asking “when will Nigeria grow up?” as many of us determine that this wayward child has exhausted the love that was once readily available and is instead deserving of the severest punishment available.
Many of us within the diaspora wonder what we can do to support all that is happening, in the first instance we must amplify the voices of those who are there, fighting on a daily basis. Keeping this issue visible and with the same vim that we gave to the Black Lives Matter movement this year. One thing we learned from the events of Tuesday 20 October 2020 is that if not for social media and people streaming live and direct from Lekki, the lies that followed to cover up the true state of events would have been swallowed and the narrative changed forever. We simply cannot afford such.
As a Yoruba woman, a British-Nigerian, a Nigerian in diaspora, I continue to hold on to and explore my identity and heritage through exploring my country of origins collective history. Borrowing from Saidiya Hartman’s Lose Your Mother: A Journey along the Atlantic Slave Route (2006), we are now confronted with choosing our past by constructing our now. We have gotten to this point through a succession of happenings that many of us did not contribute towards, but find ourselves having to live through and make meaning from. As we add bricks to the wall of our past for a new generation, we must dismantle the rotten foundations and build upwards. Elements of this evoke hope and excitement whilst simultaneously carving out a small nook for fear within this process as we are held by the fleeting thoughts of the ‘what if’s’ concerning what we may be leaving behind and if we will regret it. However, those thoughts are just that, fleeting. Witnessing the events that have taken place in Nigeria over the past two weeks, there is much that we must leave behind and without a second glance. The formation of Nigeria in its current state is a cycle we must move through with incredible pace in order to be the country its children deserve.
If you are looking for way to help or support please use the links below:
Template to notify your local MP’s in the UK compiled by Chibundu Onuzo - https://psjuk.org/contact-mp/
Templates for various Nigerian Embassy’s across Europe and the USA compiled by @EndSARSUK - https://linktr.ee/Endsarsuk
I will update this post periodically when I come across new links including ones to donate as we know that funds are desperately needed to support the work that is happening in Nigeria.
Please remember to rest and keep vigilant - change is coming.