Framing Injustice: Special Anti-Robbery Squads (SARS) in Nigeria and the #EndSARS Protest Response from a Social Movement Theory Perspective

This article employs Social Movement Theory (SMT) to examine collective action mobilisation against malfeasance by Nigeria’s Special Anti-Robbery Squads (SARS). Created in the 1990s counter armed gangs, SARS gradually became discredited. Finally, October 2020, after weeks of public protest, unit was disbanded. The #EndSARS movement proved instrumental here. present explores origins, nature and decline until protests. arguably provoked police reform Nigeria. Furthermore, whereas social media has dominated discourse on protesters’ agency, I employ framing theory, as a SMT sub-set, show that employed diagnostic, prognostic motivational frames, within “injustice” master towards mobilisation. In conducting this analysis, situate case broader literature debate impactful protests brutality.