stop at Swat: In November, prominent End Sars activist Eromosole Adene (AKA EROMZ) was detained for ten days by authorities for alleged “criminal incitement, cyber-stalking [and] breach of public peace”, prompting a viral Twitter hashtag campaign, #FreeEromz.

For all the movement’s progress, there was a lack of recognition for all of its voices in some areas. Although women – from Oduala and Abudu to the Feminist Coalition and the activists working the food stalls at rallies – were at the forefront of the protests, it didn’t stop them being attacked on social media. “Women showed up in such a major way,” says Abudu. “Of course, men showed up too, but most of the people I worked with during End Sars were women.

It was phenomenal, because Sars affected women but it affected men more, and it didn’t matter because they still showed up. It was also exciting to see women taking positions at the forefront of an important movement, and I look forward to seeing more of that in future.”

Cracks began to appear within the movement itself, too. Awosanya, maintaining that protests should have ended with the dissolution of Sars, accused feminist and LGBTQ+ factions of bringing a “demonic agenda” to the movement in an apparently homophobic series of tweets. “The movement wasn’t intersectional,” says activist Matthew Blaise of the bias that silenced LGBTQ+ campaigners during the protests. “It was just about cis heterosexual men and their encounters with Sars. Even women and queer people who supported the movement at that moment came from the angle of how [Sars] affected cis het men [rather than] how it affected us. For me, as a queer person, I’m profiled based on my gender expressions and sexuality. Which is very different from the ‘normal’ Sars profiling.”

The protests continued until the night of October 20, when young Nigerians watched in horror as live footage captured by Warri-born musician DJ Switch showed armed forces opening fire on protesters at the Lekki toll gate, in Lagos state. The incident, which trended online as #LekkiMassacre and prompted a cover-up by the Nigerian government to mask the number of casualties, marked the premature end of the movement. “Young people were beginning to imagine a new future and we were rudely shaken back to reality by the sound of military guns and the cries of wounded colleagues,” says Oduala, recalling the tragic events of the night.

“The next few days were horrific,” says Abudu, who was working in one of Lagos’s call-centres at the time of the shootings. “I remember we were trying to get an ambulance for a boy who was shot during an altercation [with] the police, and not only did he pass away because the police wouldn’t let the ambulance through, the boy’s family couldn’t move his body because we couldn’t get there in time.” Lagos’s state government had imposed a curfew to block protesters, and police officers on the ground were stopping ambulances from reaching the injured. “It was the best and the worst time, because I’d never seen us so united, but that unity also led to major bloodshed that many of us will never forget.”

The Future our contribution to the fight and decided that nothing else was important,” says Native’s managing editor Damilola Animashaun.

“We had to shut down our daily processes in order to focus on the protests and document what was happening when traditional news outlets wouldn’t,” says Tomiwa Aladekomo, CEO of Zikoko’s publisher Big Cabal Media. “Now we have extended that gesture to create a vertical which aims to improve the understanding Nigerians have of their government.”

Falz believes the movement means a great deal for the future of social justice in Nigeria. “This is a build-up of many years of corruption and impunity,” he explains. “[There have been] many years of mismanagement of a very wealthy country’s resources. It’s the result of a select few criminals enriching themselves at the expense of the rest of the populace. This revolt was waiting to happen.”

Similarly, Abudu thinks that the spirit of collectivism that the movement symbolised can inspire future generations, and that history will see the secondwave End Sars protesters as true agents of change. “I am hoping that we bottle this energy to want to come together for good causes,” she asserts. “And use it to set up strong systems and structures across the country.”

“We always joke that End Sars was our baptism by fire,” adds Ozzy Etomi, a member of the Feminist Coalition, a non-profit organisation founded by Damilola Odufuwa and Odunayo Eweniyi which raises funds and awareness for female-led initiatives. “But what it really did was help us quickly form a structure and identify our key strengths as an organisation.”

Though the second-wave protests were a lesson in collective action that has undoubtedly pushed Nigerian protest forward, for Eweniyi, it highlighted shortcomings in Nigerian society that urgently need addressing. “The protests showed very glaringly that there is still a lot of work we have to do to make sure marginalised voices are not silenced,” she says. “It raises a lot of questions: if the protests were focused on issues that affected women, or just queer people, would it have gotten that amount of support? I don’t think so.”

At the time of writing, it has been five months since the Lekki toll gate shootings, and no one has been held accountable for it. “I think the protests ended rather abruptly for many of us,” says Makinde. “Because of social media, we witnessed in real-time how the Nigerian government and its army were not hesitant to end young Nigerian life on our own soil. Seeing all this reminds me that the struggle is far from over and there are still many more [battles] ahead for us to make this country habitable for all its people.”

In spite of the outcome of the second wave, Makinde believes that young Nigerians won in other ways. “An entire generation learned how to speak up for themselves and challenge the leadership of our rulers in public office,” he says. “I’m really proud to have stood beside fellow young Nigerians last year and I’m ready to stand beside them again when the time comes.” Fahd Bello and Juju of skate collective Iter Mob, who joined the protests last year, say the movement played a “huge role” in changing the ways in which young Nigerians interact with social justice, adding that “people are more confident now, more willing to express themselves through their art. [There is] beauty behind the madness.”

For the Feminist Coalition, the second wave’s failings have only emboldened their mission. “Following the protests, there have been a lot of ideas about who we should be and what we should do,” says Etomi. “With the protests behind us and with all that we experienced both as young Nigerian millennials and as an organisation, we are more dedicated than ever to our mission:

the advancement of women in Nigerian society.” Despite this, the collective – whose international presence has blossomed since the protests in 2020 – gather around one profound final truth. “It was one of the first times we had seen the Nigerian youth come together with one collective voice.”

There are other positives. Outlets like Native and Zikoko changed their editorial approaches during the protests and, more widely, there’s a feeling that the movement has effected permanent change for Nigerian journalism. “At that moment, End Sars was youth culture, and so as a team we recognised opposite page,

left: DJ SWITCH wears all clothes her own. right: RINU wears all clothes and jewellery her own