The Guardian newspaper has named the #EndSARS protesters as the “2020 Person of the Year.”
“The #EndSARS Protesters! The Messengers of Hope” is the caption on the popular newspaper front page yesterday.
DJ Switch, who is currently on exile posted the update this morning.
It is obvious that all the efforts and the bloodshed that greeted the protests did not go in vain. They certainly will not be forgotten in a hurry too.
The second part of the caption gives comfort to all the youth yearning for a better future for themselves, their children yet unborn and generations after.
An article by Martins Oloja, The Guardian Editor In Chief explicitly states that the Nigerian youths have had enough of being used by the aristocrats for their political and selfish gains.
According to Oloja, “The EndSARS connoisseurs don’t believe in charity anymore. They believe in solidarity. They are aware too that charity is vertical and so it’s humiliating: it goes from top to the bottom – with humiliating offerings. They have read that solidarity is horizontal: it respects the other and learns from the other. They have learnt a lot from the other significant social changers.”
Oloja in Explaining the newspapers choice of the 2020 Person of the Year said that “despite the dispute and concomitant on-going presidential investigations, even the President bowed to the remarkable demands of the young patriots when he said, the voices of the young protesters had been heard loud and clear!
“And so for that significant testimony of awakening the sleepy and docile seats of power in the country to realise that poverty and hardship are national security threats; for shaking the table of the powerful ones without losing their mojo; for demonstrating through magnificent planning that we can be all leaders and followers of a common cause – to bring back our country; for showing the power elite what it is to be truly Nigerian; for showing that with proper understanding of the times through good leadership, Nigeria can indeed lead Africa and indeed the black race, the EndSARS Youth Movement is The Guardian’s Person of the Year 2020.”