Youths in Nigeria have been on the streets of the country’s major cities protesting against police brutality for more than 8 days now, but it appears they have just secured a very crucial voice. In a series of tweets, CEO and founder of social media network Twitter, Jack Dorsey, has not only destroyed claims — by tweeting an endorsement— in some quarters that the campaign, part of which is run on his online platform, is largely populated by a criminal group hinted as feministcoalition, he has also gone ahead to declare support for the #ENDSARS campaign, and called on his 4.7 million followers to donate bitcoins in support.
A Regular Friend Of Nigeria
This is not the first time Dorsey is showing support for Africa’s most populous nation, home to over 40 million users of his social media platform Twitter. In 2019, Dorsey paid a visit to Nigeria, Ghana, South Africa and Ethiopia where he held talks on bitcoin and blockchain which he said had a great future on the continent.
He had also earlier revealed plans to temporarily relocate to Africa this year but for the coronavirus pandemic.
“ With everything happening with the world, particularly coronavirus,” he had said, “I have to reconsider what’s going on and what that means for me and for the company. I had been working on my plans where I’d work decentralized, as my team and I do when we travel, but in light of COVID-19 and everything else going on I need to reevaluate. Either way we’ll continue to pursue opportunities in Africa.”
Nigerian Youth Have Been Fighting A Killer Police Squad
For the past eight days now, Nigerians, a majority of whom are young people, have been on the streets of the country’s major cities demanding the total scrapping of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) unit— renamed Special Weapons And Tactics (SWAT) — a Nigerian Police Force unit under the Force Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department headed by the country’s Deputy Inspector General of Police, notorious for extra-judicial murder and extortion of civilians.
“Ending SARS is important for the Nigerian tech industry,” tweeted Mark Essien, CEO and co-founder of Hotels.ng, a leading hospitality startup in Nigeria and one of the many startups in the country hugely affected by the police’s abuse of power.
“Your coders and other techies are disproportionately affected,” he said. “It is in your businesses best interest to get SARS stopped. Staying neutral is the same as supporting what’s happening right now.”
A gruesome photo shared by one Egbewunmi Mayowa, a Senior Software Engineer at Interwitch, Africa’s second startup company to achieve one billion dollar valuation captured the horror vividly. In the picture, Mayowa’s skin appears deeply cut into, peeled off and permanently charred, a memory he would carry with him for a very long time.
“SARS did this to me!” He said. “My only sin was carrying a laptop bag. I am just one of the few people privileged to be alive #EndSarsNow #EndPoliceBrutality ”
Targeting Investors Too
The ordeals extend beyond young people, startups or their employees to even investors in Nigeria. According to Aubrey Hruby, an Africa-focused investor and Partner at Baylis Emerging Markets as well as Co-Founder of the Africa Expert Network, it was a nightmare when she brought some venture capitalists from Egypt to Nigeria in 2019.
“It is high time,” she said , “…they were completely shaken down and robbed by the police as they were leaving the country after an amazing week of meeting with stellar Nigerian entrepreneurs.”
Dorsey #ENDSARS Dorsey #ENDSARS Dorsey #ENDSARS
A Massive Support From The Nigerian Startup Community
As the protests rage on, Nigerian startups are increasingly playing active roles, largely in support of their workforce and customers, a majority of whom are young people.
“Startups have coughed out almost N10m to support #EndSarsProtests in 30 hours,” said Oreoluwa Shonibare, co-founder, Wii CREATE, a Lagos-based content creation startup. “Not just tweets, but an active costly support. That’s showing they care. Almost none have (sic) 1,000,000 active users on their products. Nigerian banks have 10m+ (+40% youths) users and still NO TWEET.”
Flutterwave is one such startup company that is going as far as fundraising.
“So many of us are affected by this injustice,” Olugbenga Agboola, CEO and co-founder of the cross-border payment startup said. “Flutterwave staff have also been victims of the brutality of SARS, so we started an internal fund so we can help victims of SARS and support protesters.”
So far, the startup has raised more than ₦10m.
A New Chapter?
With the protests persisting and government promising reforms, the country’s startup ecosystem, filled with young people, is on the frontline, and is severely threatened if no tangible reforms as demanded by the protesters are implemented.
Amnesty International says government’s promise to just reform without scrapping the notorious SARS unit is no longer sustainable.
“2015 — SARS will be reformed; 2016 — SARS will be restructured; 2017 — SARS will be reorganized; 2018 — SARS will be reformed; 2019 — SARS will be disbanded; 2020 — SARS brutalize Nigerians more,” the organisation noted in a tweet.
According to the most recent report from the African Private Equity and Venture Capital Association, between 2014 and 2019, Nigeria accounted for 14% of all total VC funding deals done in Africa, just behind Kenya (at 18%) and South Africa (at 21%). Nigeria also houses Africa’s most valuable startup ecosystem — Lagos — which according to Startup Genome, in its Report, was worth $2 billion as of 2017.
Whatever happens in the coming days will not only shape the future of a lot of the country’s youth population, but will also open a new chapter for its nascent startup ecosystem which employs a substantial amount of Nigeria’s young people.
Charles Rapulu Udoh
Charles Rapulu Udoh is a Lagos-based lawyer who has advised startups across Africa on issues such as startup funding (Venture Capital, Debt financing, private equity, angel investing etc), taxation, strategies, etc. He also has special focus on the protection of business or brands’ intellectual property rights ( such as trademark, patent or design) across Africa and other foreign jurisdictions.
He is well versed on issues of ESG (sustainability), media and entertainment law, corporate finance and governance.
He is also an award-winning writer