Civil organizations in Nigeria have thrown their support behind planned demonstrations for February 13 at the Lekki Toll Gate, the site of the police killing of demonstrators calling for the disbanding of the notorious Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS).

The ongoing South Korean presidential race holds significant sociopolitical implications for the future of democracy as democratic backsliding has now become an undeniable reality in South Korea. 

This update represents violence in Nigeria and related to Boko Haram in Cameroon, Chad, and Niger from November 16 to 22, 2019.

The security situation around Borno’s capital, Maiduguri, appears to be going from bad to worse. On February 9, The Boko Haram faction Islamic State in West African (ISWA) shot or burned alive some thirty people sleeping in their cars and trucks that night outside the town of Auno, some ten miles from Maiduguri. They also kidnapped others.

Nigeria’s governance system is oppressive, though it lacks an evocative name like apartheid. The tragic episodes of brutality by the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), while dismaying, are not new occurrences.