Who Gave The Order Preserves Nigeria's EndSARS Memories

Six years after Nigeria's October 2020 EndSARS protests, a literary anthology is documenting the movement's human cost, political tensions and enduring significance. In Who Gave The Order (2025), editor Chibueze Darlington Anuonye brings together 13 Nigerian writers to examine the demonstrations against police brutality and the experiences of a generation that mobilized to demand change.

According to a review by Azubuike Obi published by Afrocritik on October 20, 2026, the collection explores questions of national identity, belonging, state violence and the responsibilities of writers in preserving collective memory. Its contributors approach the protests through fiction, personal recollections and historical reflection.

The anthology takes its historical context from the demonstrations that called for the disbandment of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, known as SARS, and broader reforms to Nigeria's police force. The protests culminated in the October 2020 shooting of civilians at Lekki Tollgate by members of Nigeria's armed forces.

Obi recalls watching DJ Switch's Instagram Live coverage from Kuje, Abuja, alongside his siblings around midnight on October 20, 2020. After the livestream disconnected, his family searched online reports for information about the gunfire and its victims.

The reviewer writes that the incident remains part of a wider national reckoning, arguing that the government has not accepted responsibility for the lives lost that night. Obi also describes continued police checkpoints and extortion as evidence of problems that persist beyond the original demonstrations.

In his introductory essay, titled "Come, Let's Go Home: In Lieu of an Introduction", Anuonye examines the Nigerian state's failure to protect young people and considers the role of writers as custodians of memory.

Anuonye describes the country's history of violence against its own citizens in a passage quoted by Obi: "Nigeria has often shown itself to be a place of unpredictable violence, a country that kills its own in the month it celebrates its independence from colonial rule."

He also argues that writers must preserve the experiences of victims and survivors rather than allow their suffering to disappear from public memory.

"What we can do is to turn to those who died and those who are dying", Anuonye writes, calling on writers to "show them that we have not forgotten why they died, why they are dying, why they are grieving, because their death is our death and their sorrow is also ours."

Among the collection's contributions, Esther Ifesinachi Okonkwo's "Fences" examines the personal consequences of abuse by SARS officers through the story of a former lover whose experiences leave him struggling with humiliation. Zenas Ubere's "What You Saw" uses an ordinary bus journey to explore the social and political atmosphere surrounding the demonstrations.

TJ Benson's "Hashtags" documents the prevalence of police harassment that helped fuel the protests. Ayomipo Ifenaike's "Zombies in Lagos" and Basit Jamiu's "Reshaping the Self" explore how online activism encouraged participation in the movement, both virtually and on the streets.

The anthology also places EndSARS within Nigeria's longer history of civic resistance. Obi contrasts the newspaper-driven mobilization associated with the 1989 Anti-SAP riots, which opposed economic hardship under Head of State General Ibrahim Babangida and his Structural Adjustment Program, with the role of social media, particularly Twitter, during the 2020 demonstrations.

Abubakar Adam Ibrahim's "This Was Supposed to be Different" examines the historical use of disproportionate force against civilians, bringing an older generation's experiences of Nigerian protests into the discussion. Ukamaka Olisakwe's "Happy, Really" considers how class shapes relationships between Nigerians and the police through the experiences of a direct sales agent in Abia State during the banking sector's post-capitalization era.

Mazpa Ejikem's "Let the Kite Perch" addresses divisions within the protest movement, particularly the exclusion of queer Nigerians who sought to connect their own struggle against oppression with the broader campaign against police brutality.

Ejikem challenges the movement's contradictions in a passage quoted by Obi: "There is something searingly painful about the dishonesty of the EndSARS protest".

Through its 13 contributions, Who Gave The Order records the varied experiences and disagreements surrounding the protests while examining how state violence, social divisions and digital activism shaped a generation of Nigerian demonstrators.