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Since mid-October, protestors across Nigeria have been demonstrating daily to bring attention to claims that a police unit known as the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) is taking part in kidnapping, extortion and other violent and unlawful actions.
Though the country’s inspector general announced that SARS would be disbanded on October 11, protests have continued, with participants calling for additional police oversight. Yesterday, international reports emerged claiming that members of the Nigerian army fired at protestors in Lagos, the country’s largest city.
It’s clear that the Nigerian government and a significant set of its more than 200 million citizens will not resolve their differences anytime soon. And the recent reports of violence echo previous actions taken by Nigerian officials, particularly an oppressive move that has pushed some protestors toward Plan B.
Finding A Lifeline In Bitcoin
The Feminist Coalition[2] is a Nigerian advocacy group formed in July 2020 focused on advancing and protecting the rights of women in the country. When protests emerged calling for the dissolution of SARS, this group decided to help by fundraising to sustain peaceful demonstrations. It wanted to provide basic necessities and other resources for the protestors.
“We are scared young Nigerian women who were never a threat,” explained Dami Odufuwa, a Feminist Coalition organizer, in an email to Bitcoin Magazine. “We just wanted to contribute toward Nigerians exercising their constitutional rights safely by providing food, water, masks (for COVID-19), paying medical bills and supporting legal aid for arrested protestors, etc.”
As of October 13, it had distributed[3] 11,810,500 Nigerian naira (about $31,000) to protest causes around the
