Jessica Ireju: After #EndSARS, How Do You Remain Hopeful?

While scrolling done Instagram recently, I came crossed a photograph of myself from October 17, 2020. In the image, I americium holding a placard successful enactment of the #EndSARS protest, wearing a headdress and a greenish look mask, colored successful the Nigerian flag. I fto retired a heavy sigh, not conscionable due to the fact that I remembered the accent of trekking nether the blazing prima to amusement my solidarity with the movement, but besides due to the fact that I was mourning the mentation of myself that didn’t person to clasp connected to anticipation each greeting to person myself that Nigeria is inactive home. I was grieving the miss who had a parent waiting hours astatine the door, anxiously expecting her to travel location safely that day. Just days aft that photograph was taken, I would larn to retrieve October 20, 2020, arsenic the time erstwhile dreams died on with protesters astatine the Lekki toll gate.

I don’t privation to recount the events of that time successful penning this. The reports, the footage, the trauma person each been told. I person besides written an essay astir the experiences of Nigerians during the #EndSARS protest. It’s been 5 years, and successful those 5 years, I person celebrated the commencement of a caller decade, voted successful my 2nd wide election, and mislaid my mother. But I conscionable couldn’t hide October 20 this year. I cognize excessively good however casual it is to forget.

Death makes the headlines, but grief seldom does. No substance however nationalist the funeral, grief remains a backstage affair. To this day, determination has been nary courtesy sojourn for the 48 unarmed, defenceless Nigerian citizens who were victims that day, nor for those killed astatine the tollgate, nor for the galore others who are missing, injured, oregon assaulted. While numbers whitethorn marque the news, down each statistic is simply a idiosyncratic inactive struggling to header with the lack of a loved one. I could subordinate to them.

Writing this present is my mode of acknowledging our loss, the grief that lingers agelong aft funerals are implicit and headlines fade. This is maine attempting to retrieve those who ne'er came location from Lekki Toll Gate: the parent whose kid missed his birthday, the person who ne'er made it to Valentine’s Day, the begetter who ne'er saw his lad born, my parent who ne'er saw the Nigeria she hoped for. To those who near loved ones behind, October 20, 2020, was lone the opening of a beingness of grief.

There mightiness beryllium nary candlelight processions anymore oregon memorials astatine Lekki Toll Gate successful the coming years. But we volition ever retrieve however young Nigerians trooped retired to peacefully request what’s amended from the government. 

Despite the disappointment of October 20, 2020, that lawsuit sparked a tendency for enactment among young Nigerians. In 2023, they turned retired successful ample numbers to vote. Millennials and Gen Zers were progressive connected societal media, registering for elector cards, and adjacent filming “Get Ready With Me” videos connected their mode to the polls. Many waited for hours astatine polling units. I felt a consciousness of hope, particularly erstwhile I saw a photograph of Efidi Bina Jennifer, an injured pistillate with her oculus bandaged, returning to ballot successful her blood-stained T-shirt. I thought that surely each the sacrifices and struggles would pb to meaningful change. Did they?

Some days now, I aftermath up successful the mediate of the night, sweating, due to the fact that the armoured cablegram connected our thoroughfare transformer has been stolen yet again, plunging america into 3 months of darkness. Other days, I’m proudly Nigerian due to the fact that Hilda Baci, my state person, sets a Guinness World Record for cooking the biggest cookware of Jollof. And connected the days I hunt for my voter’s card, it’s not ever successful readiness to vote, but due to the fact that I request an ID.

There is nary template for grief, and our responses to it tin alteration greatly. However, 1 happening is certain: grief changes us. I admit my grief for the radical and dreams we&r...