The Effect of End SARS Protest on Public Cooperation With the Nigerian Police
CHAPTER ONE
Objectives of the study
The primary objective of the study is as follows:
- To know the effect of end sars protest on public relationship with the Nigerian police force.
- To know the reasons for the end sars protest
- To find out how the relationship of police and citizens can be improved upon
CHAPTER TWO
REVIEW OF LITERATURE
INTRODUCTION
Our focus in this chapter is to critically examine relevant literature that would assist in explaining the research problem and furthermore recognize the efforts of scholars who had previously contributed immensely to similar research. The chapter intends to deepen the understanding of the study and close the perceived gaps.
Precisely, the chapter will be considered in three sub-headings:
- Conceptual Framework
- Theoretical Framework
- Empirical framework
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
The Concept of protest.
Protest has been defined as “an expression or declaration of objection, disapproval, or dissent, often in opposition to something a person is power-less to prevent or avoid.” (Random House Dictionary, 1967). An act of protest includes the following elements: the action expresses a grievance, a conviction of wrong or injus-tice; the protestors are unable to correct the condition directly by their own efforts; the action is intended to draw attention to the grievances; the action is further meant to provoke ameliorative steps by some target group; and the protesters depend upon some combination of sympathy and fear to move the target group in their behalf. Protest ranges from relatively persuasive to relatively coercive combinations (Bayley, 1962), but always includes both. Many forms of protest involve no violence or disruption, but these will not concern us further in this paper. The term protest is sometimes applied to trivial and chronic challenges that are more indicative of a reaction style than of deep grievance. For instance, we speak of a child who protests every command from parent or teacher in the hope of gaining occasional small concessions. It is in this sense that the protestations by some groups in society are popularly discounted because “they just pro-test everything.” But the subject of this anal-ysis is social protest, by which we mean pro-test that is serious in the feeling of grievance that moves it and in the intent to provoke ameliorative action. When violence and disorder are identified as social protest, they constitute a mode of communication more than a form of direct action. Looting is not primarily a means of acquiring property, as it is normally viewed in disaster situations (Dynes and Quaran-telli, 1968); breaking store windows and burning buildings is not merely a perverted form of amusement or immoral vengeance like the usual vandalism and arson; threats of violence and injury to persons are not simply criminal actions. All are expressions of outrage against injustice of sufficient mag-nitude and duration to render the resort to such exceptional means of communication understandable to the observer. In identifying the principal alternatives to protest we must first differentiate crime and deviance on the one hand and rebellion and revolution on the other. The latter may or may not express a generally understandable grievance, but they constitute direct action rather than communication and their aim is to destroy the authority of the existing sys-tem either totally or so far as the rebellious group is concerned. Thus protest and rebel-lion are distinguished according to their ulti-mate goal and according to whether the disruptions are meant as communication or direct action. Deviance and crime are actions identified chiefly according to their noncon-forming, illegal, or harmful character. Devi-ance and crime are seen principally in indi-vidual terms, and while there may be “social” causes that require attention, the harmful or nonconforming features of the behavior are the primary concern. The distinctions are not absolute. Extortion, “power plays,” and sim-ilar ideas fall between crime and protest. Nor can the line between protest and rebel-lion be drawn precisely. Attributing disorders to agitators is another common variation, in which either criminal or rebellious meaning is ascribed to the agitators, but any criminal, protest, or rebellious meaning is blunted for the mass of participants. In deciding that individuals view a dis-turbance as social protest, it is helpful but not conclusive to note whether they apply the term protest. Defining a disturbance as pro-test does not preclude disapproving the vio-lence or disorder by which the protest is expressed, nor does it preclude advocating immediate measures to control and suppress the disturbance. Thus Marvin Olsen’s (1968) study of the legitimacy that individuals as-sign to various types of protest activities is related to the present question, but makes a somewhat different distinction. The principal indicators of a protest definition are con-cerned with identifying the grievances as the most adequate way of accounting for the dis-turbance and the belief that the main treat-ment indicated is to ameliorate the unjust conditions. Fogelson (1968: 37-38) offers an exceptionally explicit statement of this mode of interpreting racial disorder: “. . . the riots of the 1960’s are articulate protests against genuine grievances in the Negro ghettos. The riots are protests because they are attempts to call the attention of white society to the Negroes’ widespread dissatisfaction with ra-cial subordination and segregation in urban America.
The riots are also articulate because they are restrained, selective, and perhaps even more important, directed at the sources of the Negroes’ most immediate and pro-found grievances.”
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
INTRODUCTION
In this chapter, we described the research procedure for this study. A research methodology is a research process adopted or employed to systematically and scientifically present the results of a study to the research audience viz. a vis, the study beneficiaries.
RESEARCH DESIGN
Research designs are perceived to be an overall strategy adopted by the researcher whereby different components of the study are integrated in a logical manner to effectively address a research problem. In this study, the researcher employed the survey research design. This is due to the nature of the study whereby the opinion and views of people are sampled. According to Singleton & Straits, (2009), Survey research can use quantitative research strategies (e.g., using questionnaires with numerically rated items), qualitative research strategies (e.g., using open-ended questions), or both strategies (i.e., mixed methods). As it is often used to describe and explore human behaviour, surveys are therefore frequently used in social and psychological research.
CHAPTER FOUR
DATA PRESENTATION AND ANALYSIS
INTRODUCTION
This chapter presents the analysis of data derived through the questionnaire and key informant interview administered on the respondents in the study area. The analysis and interpretation were derived from the findings of the study. The data analysis depicts the simple frequency and percentage of the respondents as well as interpretation of the information gathered. A total of one hundred and forty-seven (147) questionnaires were administered to respondents of which only one hundred and forty-one (141) were returned and validated. This was due to irregular, incomplete and inappropriate responses to some questionnaire. For this study a total of 141 was validated for the analysis.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION
SUMMARY
In this study, our focus was to examinethe effect of end sars protest on public cooperation with the Nigerian police using citizens and police in Lagos State, as a case study. The study specifically was aimed at knowing the effect of end sars protest on public relationship with the Nigerian police force, know the reasons for the end sars protest and find out how the relationship of police and citizens can be improved upon. The study adopted the survey research design and randomly enrolled participants in the study. A total of 141 responses were validated from the enrolled participants where all respondent are drawn from citizens and policemen.
CONCLUSION
Based on the finding of this study, the following conclusions were made:
- The end sars protest have any effect on public relationship with the Nigerian police force.
- The reasons for the end sars protest in Nigeria is human rights abuses,Police cruelty, degrading treatment of Nigerians in their custody and extrajudicial killings.
- The relationship between police and citizens be improved upon thrrough community policing, transparency, Interact with people in non-enforcement situations and mutual trust.
RECOMMENDATION
Based on the responses obtained, the researcher proffers the following recommendations:
The citizens of Nigeria should endeavor to have one voice and speak for change in the country. Also, they should step up and get involved in the politics of the country by joining political parties, contesting for political offices etc. This will help making their voices and interests to be borne and achieved in the country.
REFERENCES
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- Agbalajobi, D., (2020). Why #EndSARS Protest Are Different, and What Lesson They Hold for Nigeria. https://theconversation.com/
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- Aldous Huxley, Point Counterpoint, Ljubljana: Cankarjeva zalozba, 1971, p. 267. All living beings are equipped with mechanisms which make above all two things possible: firstly, protection of the integrity of an individual, and secondly, the reproduction of species. Their behavior is to a great extent conditioned by their motivation and emotional state. International Journal on World Peace, March 1991, pp.19-20.
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- Bayley, David H. 1962 “The pedagogy of democracy: coercive public protest in India.” American Political Science Review 56 (September):663-672.
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