Nigerian musician, actor, and politician, Olubankole ‘Banky W’ Wellington, commends Protestants who are clamoring for the banning of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad “SARS”.
Nigerian musician, actor, and politician, Olubankole ‘Banky W’ Wellington, commends Protestants who are clamoring for the banning of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad “SARS”.
Banky W
The ban hasn’t been made effective yet, despite the uproar of Nigerian youths clamoring for the abolition of “SARS”.
Many Nigerians are pushing the social media campaign ‘#EndSARS’ on social media, with some, participating in a 2-day nationwide protest across the country to influence the ban.
On Friday the 9th of October 2020, Banky W took to social media to commend everyone who participated in the peaceful #EndSARS protest so far.
Massive shoutout to everyone who took part in the peaceful #endsars protests. I’m extremely proud of you and will continue to voice my support for the changes we desperately need.
However, Banky W accentuated different periods of which the government claimed to ban this security unity, only to overturn their decisions every time. The veteran musician posted pictorial evidence of newsletters dated back to 2017 to back his claims.
He further advised Nigerians to fully participate in politics to influence change in the system, by exercising their rights to vote and by supporting like-minded individuals who are running for office. In his words:
Let’s all register to vote. Then let’s ALL get into a party as one massive force/block. Let influence/impact the system from within.
Massive shoutout to the incredible people who took part in the peaceful #endsars Protests. I’m extremely proud of you and will continue to voice my support for the positive changes we so desperately need. The frustrating thing about protests is the tendency for a lot of noise to be made, and then things slip back to normal shortly thereafter. Click through the screenshots… you’ll see that “they” have “banned SARS stop-and-search” almost every single year, consecutively… 2017, 2018, 2019 and now 2020. It’s pretty frustrating to see that even though our leaders always claim that things will change, they tend to stay the same. This isn’t meant to discourage people from protesting. Not at all. I have participated in more protests than most people – when Yaradua died and they didn’t want to hand over to GEJ, we took to the streets with Enough is Enough. When we got fed up by the power situation, we protested with Light Up Nigeria. When the Chibok girls happened, we protested with #BringBackOurGirls. We even took part in #OccupyNaija – not because fuel subsidy wasn’t bad, but because we wanted to seize the moment to shine the light on wasteful spending and corruption in Govt. We’ve been a part of countless protests, conferences and seminars… however my greatest (and most effective-thus-far) act of protest was going against the status quo in the last election, despite the cost and the odds. I’m now much more inspired/interested in changing the system than stopping at protesting against it. I’d like to encourage us that when the noise dies down, let’s join forces to infiltrate and change the system. Let’s ALL register to vote. Then let’s ALL get into a party as one massive force/block. Let’s influence/impact the system from within. The problems in Nigeria are from the top-down, but the solution is from the bottom-up. Let’s target the houses of Assembly, the house of Representatives and the Senate. Let’s collaborate and target getting like-minds into the system so that we can change it once and for all. So that another year goes by, and they just “audio-ban” SARS again.
Systemic, sustainable change is what we need. I hope you’re ready for the new move. #TalkAndDo
