Comparing EndSARS With Canadian Truckers Protests

By Agunloye Adewunmi Bashiru

SIR: On October 20, 2020, tens of thousands of young Nigerians took to the streets in mass demonstrations against police brutality – an event that shook major cities in Nigeria. The trucker protests in Canada started late January in downtown Ottawa where hundreds of drivers of heavy-duty trucks, pickup trucks and other vehicles took to the streets to protest social restrictions and vaccine mandates occasioned by Covid-29. The trucker’s convoy obstructed traffic, forced some businesses to close their doors while disrupting daily lives. These protests were staged in many other cities and places in Canada.

Unlike in Nigeria where many of the protesters were brutalized and killed by the police, the Canadian Police and other security agents were seen appealing to protesters not to obstruct the traffic flow or disturb residents.

Even with the blockade of the Ambassador Bridge that leads to U.S State of Detroit by the protesters, it took a court injunction to enable the police remove the blockade caused on the bridge by the protesters. The police, while effecting the injunction of the court, were seen appealing to truckers and protesters for several hours to move their trucks and to go home. It was only when the protesters continued to be defiant that some of the violators were arrested without being brutalized by the police.

Journalists were allowed to perform their statutory duties of reporting the event as they unfolded without being brutalized or molested by the agents of government. No single case of journalists’ arrest by the police was reported. None of their equipment was destroyed, confiscated or seized.

The government from the municipal, province and federal did not use force on the protesters; likewise the police were not seen brutalizing the people.

For the Nigerian government represented by the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed to have likened the EndSARS protests in Nigeria with the Canadian truckers protests, is ridiculous, particularly his characterisation of the action of the Canadian government as double standard.

Was it not when the agents of Nigerian government, the Nigeria Police went after the protesters that the protesters started destroying public properties?

Instead of making a false comparison between the EndSARS protests and the ongoing truckers’ protests in Canada, the government should rather learn from the civil way the Canadian authorities dealt with protesters as demonstrated by the various levels of governments in Canada.

Elected officials in Nigeria should learn from what the mayor (chairman) of City of Ottawa in Canada, Jim Watson did by negotiating with the organizers while asking them to vacate the blockades of the residential areas in Ottawa without any use of force on the protesters.

The Nigeria Police Force should desist from brutalizing, rough-handling and molesting protesters and journalists covering protests in Nigeria. Journalists should be allowed to carry out their duties of reporting protests without any molestation or harassment.

Nigeria Police Force and other security agents should desist from openly carrying guns around during peaceful protests, while more energy should be deployed to combat terrorists, bandits and kidnappers terrorizing Nigerians.

Nigerian citizens cannot sleep with their two eyes closed because of the myriad of crimes. Citizens can’t travel freely from one state to another because of the incessant activities of bandits and kidnapping for ransom on Nigeria roads. Insecurity in Nigeria has now become a cankerworm without cure as a result of the failure of the government to proffer a holistic solution to it.

It is high time information minister, Lai Mohammed, stop trading blames and face the reality on ground and address issues holistically.

Agunloye Adewunmi Bashiru, bagunloye@gmail.com