By Joy Essien, Contributing Editor, Lagos Metropolitan
Four years after Lekki, the lesson endures
October 20, 2020, changed something in Nigeria’s national psyche. That day, young Nigerians — most of them Gen Zs — confronted power in a way our generation rarely dared. They came without godfathers or political patrons, armed only with smartphones, hashtags, and fierce hope.
The #EndSARS protests began as a cry against police brutality, but quickly became a statement of generational identity — a demand for justice, dignity, and reform. For those of us in our forties who watched from the sidelines or joined in cautious solidarity, it was humbling. We had spent decades adapting, surviving, lowering expectations. They refused to.
Even though the movement was crushed under the weight of bullets and bureaucracy, it planted a seed. Today, that seed is sprouting in unexpected places.
From Lagos to Nairobi, Kathmandu to Casablanca
Across continents, young people — often without formal leaders — are challenging their governments and rewriting the script of civic resistance. In Kenya, it was Gen Z that recently poured into the streets, forcing the government to withdraw unpopular tax bills. In Madagascar and Nepal, young protesters have mobilised against corruption and poor governance, often at great personal risk. In Morocco, the frustration of jobless youth has boiled over into widespread demonstrations demanding change.
Are these movements directly descended from Nigeria’s #EndSARS? Not quite. But they share its DNA: decentralised organisation, digital mobilisation, and moral clarity. What EndSARS did was prove that courage can trend, that a tweet can spark a march, and that young citizens can out-organise the state — if only for a moment.
It’s not that Nigeria exported protest; rather, the Nigerian example revealed what was already simmering everywhere — the impatience of a generation that refuses to inherit the failures of its elders.
A generational reckoning
As someone from an older generation, I recognise a painful truth: Gen Z is fighting battles we should have won. The corruption, impunity, and institutional rot they confront are legacies of our silence. We learned to navigate the system; they are trying to dismantle it.
What makes Gen Z unique is not just their technology but their mindset. They are less tribal, more inclusive, and far more allergic to hypocrisy. Their politics lives online and on the streets, but not in the smoky backrooms of compromise. They are impatient — sometimes naively so — yet their impatience is precisely what democracy needs.
In that sense, #EndSARS was more than a protest; it was a generational mirror held up to the rest of us.
Why ours faltered — and why theirs may not
Nigeria’s EndSARS movement was brilliant but brittle. Its decentralisation made it resilient to infiltration at first, but fragile when strategy was required. Without a unified structure, its demands were easy to dismiss and its leaders easy to smear.
Kenya’s recent protests offer a contrast. There, young people coupled online activism with deliberate civic organisation — crowd-funding, legal aid, disciplined messaging. They learned from our heartbreak. Their success was not just rage but reason.
Perhaps that is the next stage of evolution: turning hashtags into handbooks, outrage into institutions.
The long road to justice
Four years later, many EndSARS detainees remain behind bars. Panels of inquiry gathered dust. Promises of police reform remain largely cosmetic. Yet the protest’s echo refuses to fade. It continues to shape conversations about governance, youth engagement, and state accountability.
No movement achieves everything at once. History often moves in half-steps. But EndSARS gave Nigeria something priceless — a generation unafraid to imagine a different country, and an older generation forced to ask why we stopped doing the same.
Our time — and theirs
I am not Gen Z. I grew up writing letters, not tweets. I come from a generation that learned to whisper around power, not confront it. But watching those young men and women in 2020, drenched in rain and courage, I saw the future of our democracy.
It may not come soon or easily, but it will come. Because every empire — even one built on fear — eventually collapses under its own weight.
We will never forget those who stood at Lekki. And we will never again underestimate the power of a generation that learned to speak — loudly, clearly, and together.
