The New York Times - USA (2020-10-25)

2 SR THE NEW YORK TIMES, SUNDAY, OCTOBER 25, 2020

LAGOS, NIGERIA

F

OR years, the name SARS hung in

the air here in Nigeria like a putrid

fog. SARS, which stood for Special

Anti-Robbery Squad, was sup-

posed to be the elite Nigerian police unit

dedicated to fighting crime, but it was re-

ally a moneymaking terror squad with no

accountability. SARS was random, vi-

cious, vilely extortionist. SARS officers

would raid bars or stop buses on the road

and arbitrarily arrest young men for such

crimes as wearing their hair in

dreadlocks, having tattoos, holding a nice

phone or a laptop, driving a nice car. Then

they would demand large amounts of

money as “bail.”

SARS officers once arrested my cousin

at a beer parlor because he arrived driv-

ing a Mercedes. They accused him of be-

ing an armed robber, ignored the work ID

cards he showed them, and took him to a

station where they threatened to photo-

graph him next to a gun and claim he was

a robber. My cousin is one of the fortunate

few who could pay an amount large

enough for SARS and who was released.

He is not one of the many tortured, or the

many disappeared, like Chijioke Iloanya.

In 2012 Mr. Iloanya was 20 when SARS

officers arrested him. He had committed

no crime. His family tried to pay to have

him released but were asked to bring

more money than they had. So they sold

their property to raise money and went

back to the SARS office but Mr. Iloanya

was no longer there. They have not seen

him since. There are so many families like

the Iloanyas who are caught between pain

and hope, because their sons and brothers

were arrested by SARS and they fear the

worst, knowing the reputation of SARS,

but still they dare to hope in the desperate

way we humans do for those we love.

There have been End SARS protests

since 2016, but October 2020 was different.

Those protests signaled the overturning

of convention — the protesters insisted on

not having a central leadership, and, in a

country with firm class divisions, the pro-

tests cut across class. They were peaceful,

insistently peaceful, consistently peace-

ful. They were organized mostly on social

media by young Nigerians, born in the

1980s and 1990s, a disaffected generation

with courage to act. Their bravery in-

spires. They speak to hope and to the pos-

sibility of what Nigeria could become. Of

those involved in the organization, none is

more remarkable than a group called

Feminist Coalition, which has raised more

than $180,000 and has provided legal aid,

security and food to protesters.

But the government has reportedly ac-

cused Flutterwave, the company through

which the donation link was created, of ac-

cepting funds from terrorists, even

though it is clear that Feminist Coalition’s

members are not terrorists. Their fund-

raising link suddenly stopped working.

Still, they persisted, and began to raise

money through Bitcoin.

From the capital city of Abuja to the

small town of Ogbomosho, state agents at-

tacked and beat up protesters. The police

killed a few and detained many others, un-

til social media and video evidence forced

them to release some of the detained. Still,

the protesters persisted.

The Lagos State government accused

protesters of violence, but it defied com-

mon sense that a protest so consistently

committed to peaceful means would sud-

denly become violent. Protesters know

they have everything to lose in a country

like Nigeria, where the mere hint of vio-

lence gives free rein to murderous securi-

ty forces. Nigeria’s political culture is

steeped in state-sponsored thuggery. Poli-

ticians routinely hire thugs to cause cha-

os, especially during elections, and many

people believed that thugs had been hired

to compromise the protests. On social me-

dia, videos attested to this — of thugs get-

ting into SUVs that belonged to the gov-

ernment, of hardened and hungry young

men admitting they were paid to join the

protests and become violent. Still, the pro-

testers persisted.

At about noon on Oct. 20, about two

weeks into the protests, the Lagos State

governor suddenly announced a curfew

that would begin at 4 p.m., which gave

people in a famously traffic-clogged state

only a few hours to get home and hunker

down. I feared that a curfew would pro-

vide an excuse for state violence, that in

the name of restoring order, the army and

police would unleash violence. Still, I was

unprepared for the carnage that followed

at the Lekki Toll Gate. Government offi-

cials reportedly cut the security cameras,

then cut off the bright floodlights. The pro-

testers were holding Nigerian flags, sit-

ting on the ground, some kneeling, some

singing the national anthem, peaceful and

determined.

A blurry video of what happened next

has gone viral: Soldiers walk toward the

protesters with a terrifyingly casual calm,

the kind of calm you cannot have if you are

under attack, and they shoot, not up into

the air, but with their guns at arm level,

shooting into a crowd of people. Sparks of

gunfire taint the air. It is still unclear how

many died. Those at the scene say that the

army took away some bodies and pre-

vented ambulances from getting in to help

the injured, and that there was still shoot-

ing going on hours later, in the morning.

The Nigerian state has turned on its

people. The only reason to shoot into a

crowd of peaceful citizens is to terrorize:

to kill some and make the others back

down. It is a colossal and unforgivable

crime. The brazenness is chilling, that the

state would murder its citizens, in such an

obviously premeditated way, as though

certain of the lack of consequences.

It is anarchy, a friend told me. Nigeria is

descending into chaos, another friend

said. They may be right, but “anarchy”

and “chaos” are different ways of using

language to shield what is fundamentally

to blame — a failure of leadership. It did

not have to be like this. The government of

President Muhammadu Buhari has long

been ineffectual, with a kind of willful in-

difference. Under his leadership, insecuri-

ty has worsened; there is the sense that

Nigeria could very well burn to the ground

while the president remains malevolently

aloof. Twelve hours after soldiers shot

peaceful protesters, Mr. Buhari still had

not addressed the nation.

A movement cannot spread so organi-

cally and widely across Nigeria if it does

not legitimately reflect the grievances of

ordinary people. A democratically elected

government that is unable or unwilling to

fully address those grievances has failed.

In the first week of the protests, the

president sent out a tweet and then gave a

flaccid speech about ending SARS. The in-

spector general of police has announced

that SARS has been scrapped, but the gov-

ernment has announced the dissolution of

SARS a few times in the past. Because Ni-

gerians are so accustomed to the two-

faced nature of their governments, it is un-

surprising that the protesters distrust the

government and are demanding clear ac-

tions rather than words.

For weeks I have been in my ancestral

hometown, where we first buried my be-

loved father, and then a week later, buried

his only sister, my Aunt Rebecca. Im-

mersed in my own raw grief, the frequent

moments of stunned sorrow, thinking of

my father’s coffin being lowered into the

rain-softened earth, wondering if it might

still all be a bad dream, I think with a new

kind of poignancy about those who have

been killed. I think of their families bru-

tally plunged into the terrible abyss of

grief, made more terrible by the knowl-

edge that their loved ones were killed by

their country. And for what? Because they

peacefully asked to be allowed to live.

Nigeria Is Murdering Its Citizens

PIUS UTOMI EKPEI/AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE — GETTY IMAGES

There is a sense that

the country could burn

to the ground.

OPINION

BY
CHIMAMANDA
NGOZI ADICHIE
A novelist and the
author, most
recently, of “Dear
Ijeawele, or A
Feminist Manifesto
in Fifteen
Suggestions.”

Protesters

seeking an end

to Nigeria’s

brutal Special

Anti-Robbery

Squad (SARS)

barricading the

Lagos-Ibadan

Expressway, a

major link from

Lagos to many

parts of Nigeria,

on Oct. 15.

LAWRENCEBURG, IND.

F

OR 20 years, off and on, I’ve lived

in this small, blue-collar town

about 30 minutes west of Cincin-

nati. My grandparents, immi-

grants from Germany, bought my old

farmhouse, on 15 acres, during World

War II. I’ve always felt that this town em-

bodies much of what I love about the

Midwest: friendliness, a lack of preten-

sion and a prevailing sense of decency

among neighbors.

A few weeks ago, I met up with a good

friend, an 84-year-old retiree named

Frank, who lives nearby. He told me that

he’d put up a “Biden-Harris” lawn sign,

and within 36 hours it had been stolen. In

response, his girlfriend taped another

sign to the inside of their ranch home’s

front window. Frank immediately took it

down. “The chair I like to sit in is right

there,” he explained. “The next time they

come, I’m afraid it might be a brick, or a

bullet.” Just a few years ago, I would

have said that Frank was overreacting.

Now I’m not so sure.

Over the past four years, my home-

town has become radicalized. This is a

loaded word, but it’s the only way to de-

scribe it.

As recently as 2008, I saw Bill Clinton

speak at our community center, where the

crowd was so large that people had to lis-

ten to him from loudspeakers in a nearby

firehouse. The mood was electric. “People

are broke at the end of every month,” he

said. “This has to change.” He promised

that with Democratic leadership, it would.

An aggressive new energy policy would

bring jobs, with higher incomes.

And this promise was very welcome.

At the time, the best job I could find was

at a call center, selling home security

systems. But I felt hopeful. I stuck an

Obama sign in my yard and a campaign

bumper sticker on my old Corolla. Like a

lot of my neighbors, I believed that Dem-

ocrats would, in fact, improve the town’s

fortunes, and on election night, Barack

Obama carried the state.

But things didn’t improve. Not really.

The latest census reports median house-

hold income in Lawrenceburg as $30,735,

with a little over 32 percent of us in pov-

erty. And in 2014, according to The New

York Times, our small county (which is

over 97 percent white) sent more people

to prison than San Francisco. In January,

our hospital cited a “higher number of

uninsured patients” as a reason it

needed to “right-size” its work force by

laying off 31 employees and eliminating

behavioral health services.

And there are darker omens. Last fall,

my teenage nephew came running into

the house, wide-eyed, saying he’d found a

human skull in the woods. I followed him

until, panting at the bottom of a ravine, I

saw the skull trapped in a thicket of sticks

and leaves, missing several of its front

teeth. The police arrived, and for the rest

of the night, I watched from my bedroom

window as flashlights swept over the long

grass, through the woods, until they were

finally swallowed by darkness.

It was an overdose, an officer told me

later, the victim most likely another casu-

alty of the nation’s opioid epidemic. (In

2017, in this county, there were 80 opioid

prescriptions for every 100 residents.)

The young man seemed to have died

higher up on the hill, where they found

more of his remains. The rain must have

washed his skull down the slope.

The skull felt like a portent, but also a

turning point. Months later, I noticed a

vendor at a roadside stand selling Trump

flags. “Trump 2020: Keep America

Great,” one read. Another read “Trump

2020: No More [Expletive].” It was more

than half a year away from the election,

and I remember thinking: Why flags? A

flag was something people fought under,

and for; something people carried to war.

By the summer, another vendor popped

up selling flags with even bolder slogans

like “Trump 2020: [Expletive] Your Feel-

ings,” “Liberty or Die,” “Make Liberals

Cry Again.” The economy was in the

dumps but the flag business was boom-

ing.

And not just Trump flags. In the past

few months, I have seen three Confeder-

ate flags hoisted in neighbors’ yards,

where previously I’d seen none. Just a

few weeks ago, two masked men ap-

peared outside our high school, holding a

large KKK flag and fliers, apparently

scouting for young recruits.

At times, all of this has felt like a horror

movie, where it starts off happily enough

— in a sun-drenched, idyllic farmhouse

— and then the darkness slowly takes

over. The change has occurred so slowly

that at times, I hardly noticed it, until one

day I barely recognized my hometown.

Last week, I drove down for a closer

look at the nearest Trump stand, where

alongside the flags hung Trump T-shirts.

One read, “I’m a Deplorable.” And it re-

minded me of my grandparents, of how

they felt while still in Germany: willing

to work as hard as anyone but seeing no

way to improve their circumstances. In

my more charitable moments, I can see

my neighbors’ xenophobia and racism

and their Trump-loving thuggishness as

symptoms of alienation from people who

feel forsaken and disdained. This is, per-

haps, the part of me that still feels deeply

connected to where I live. But I’ve been

appalled by the ugliness I’ve seen here

this past year. And more often, in the

dwindling autumn light, I find myself

staring at my grandparents’ old farm-

house and wondering if it’s finally time to

pack my bags.

The Radicalization

Of My Small Town

The change has occurred

so slowly that at times I

hardly noticed it.

OPINION

BY BRIAN GROH

The author of the

novel “Summer

People.”

Your vote is your voice

as long as 12 hours to vote. They’re all

blatant efforts by officials to choose

who votes, and to deny voters the right

to choose who represents them.

But I am hopeful. Across the country,

we are seeing historic levels of civic

engagement—from protesting to

voting. More than 17 million voters

already have cast ballots in the 2020

general election, including 1.8 million

Americans who didn’t vote in 2016.

Americans have been willing to wait

in unacceptably long lines to vote,

even during this pandemic. And many

military leaders, former Trump admin-

istration officials and Republicans who

do not support Trump have taken the

principled and unusual step of de-

nouncing a sitting president, warning

that a second Trump term poses grave

threats to the American people and

our democracy.

Even if you have grown numb to hear-

ing that the 2020 presidential election

is “the most important election of

our lifetime” (and I believe it is), we

can agree that this election will have

life-changing consequences. Voters

will choose between President Donald

Trump, who has trafficked in chaos,

fear, lies and division, and former Vice

President Joe Biden, who seeks to

reverse Trump’s failures on COVID-19

and the economy, and to unite and

uplift the American people.

America is in the midst of four daunt-

ing crises—a pandemic, an economic

crisis, racism and a climate emergency.

And we could face a constitutional

crisis if Trump continues to cast doubt

on the legitimacy of the election if he

loses, especially since his new Supreme

Court nominee did not commit to re-

cuse herself if Trump gets his wish that

the Supreme Court, not voters, decides

this election. American democracy itself

is on the ballot.

A third wave of COVID-19 infections

is surging, yet Trump still is failing to

fight the pandemic and refusing to help

Americans suffering its consequences—

the elderly; small businesses and the

unemployed; healthcare providers;

and teachers, students and parents.

Yet he has been aggressive in other

ways—seeking foreign intervention

into elections on his behalf, attacking

the free press, threatening to jail his

political rivals and imprisoning children

of refugees. He refused to condemn the

domestic terrorists who allegedly plotted

to kidnap the governors of Michigan

and Virginia. And he told the white na-

tionalist group the Proud Boys to “stand

back and stand by,” a chilling signal to

be ready to wage political violence.

Trump, trailing in the polls, has cast

doubt on the integrity of the elections

and baselessly claimed that the only

way he could lose is if the election

is “rigged.” But let’s be clear who is

trying to rig. Trump’s allies in places

where they have the political power to

do so have purged voter rolls, closed

polling places and reversed policies to

enfranchise people of color and low-

income voters. In Georgia, which closed

214 polling sites after voter protections

were struck down, voters in heavily

minority communities have had to wait

Randi Weingarten, President

American Federation of Teachers

Photo: AFT

If we all vote, and

all votes are counted,

we the people will

have the last word.

Weingarten, left, with AFT officers Fedrick C. Ingram and Evelyn DeJesus

at a stop on the AFT Votes bus tour in Denver, Colo., Oct. 3.

I am spending the month leading up to

Election Day on a bus, getting out the

vote. Our AFT Votes bus is going coast

to coast to engage our members and

communities and underscore what’s

at stake in these elections. Why would

I spend a month on a bus, during a

pandemic (while taking all health

and safety precautions)? Because the

outcome of this election will profoundly

affect every person in America.

As we have traversed the country, I

have met with people who have felt

the ramifications of COVID-19—peo-

ple who have lost loved ones to the

disease, or had it themselves; families

suffering financially; kids struggling

with distance learning. So many people

are rightly scared. And everyone has

suffered from isolation—kids unable

to go to school, grandparents and

grandchildren who can’t visit each

other, and people who haven’t shared

a hug since the pandemic began.

I have been struck by the resilience

and hopefulness of the people I have

seen. Americans yearn for leaders

who will address the concerns that

keep us up at night. Voters in red, blue

and purple states have told me they

are voting for Joe Biden and Kamala

Harris because they will confront the

multiple crises we face and help build

a fairer and more just America—they’ll

fight COVID-19, combat the climate

crisis, expand affordable healthcare

and maintain coverage for preexisting

conditions, invest in public education,

address student loan debt and rebuild

the economy. And they will fight for

what is right and heal our nation.

Your vote is your voice. Make a plan to

vote. Vote early if you can, in person or

by mail, and track your vote online if

you vote by mail. The same is true for

your friends and family. While we may

not know the results on Nov. 3, see

through the chaos Trump is fomenting

about the legitimacy of the election. If

we all vote, and all votes are counted,

Donald Trump will not have the last

word. You will. And we the people will.

Paid for by AFT Solidarity, aft.org. Not authorized

by any candidate or candidate’s committee.

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