#EndSARS: The way to end police brutality

BY DIPO AKINKUGBE

It’s simple. We must begin to hold police officers accountable for their actions. Now, the way to ease the protests is to start by sending a clear message with the swift arrest of policemen who are evidently seen and reported to be on the wrong side of the law.

The trial and other issues of reform and compensation may not be able to happen overnight where due process needs to be followed. However, all the constitutional foundations required need to be set up in record time. Days. And people can wait on the streets for that regardless of how long it will take. Our institutions need this pressure to perform if not it will as sure as the sun will shine drift into indolence as it always does.

The stakes are literally at the highest -people’s lives- and we need to speed up the pace of government drastically in all areas. People on the streets are what should fire that up. Pussyfooting means you are willing to sacrifice more lives to police brutality because of the inconvenience of having to work harder and faster.

For this moment in time, the instinct for the youth is to survive and stay alive. A fundamental right for anyone with a conscience. The only way to at least provide a sense of that security (even if not actual security) is if the police are held accountable each and every single gaddem time there is an incident including during these protests.

After all we understand that policemen and women are adults and a product of the poor society they live in so our leaders can’t control what they chose to do anymore than you can control the choices of free citizens, which is also evident from their flagrant flouting of the orders not engage protesters violently.

But Mr. President, MR IGP, and Mr. Governor you have the power over the repercussions of those actions and you can enforce what is just, what is right, what is humane.

The only problem I see with this is if you have lost the moral authority to hold them accountable in the first place. If that’s the case then there is not much more I can say. The truth will face you when you look in the mirror. What is happening now and what will continue to happen is the consequence of your choices to ignore that truth. #sorosoke