Pascal Oparada
A campaign by technology experts in Nigeria is calling for a stop to police harassment of tech workers in the country.
The hashtag, #StopRobbingUs, is gaining momentum on social media and is aimed at drawing the attention of Nigerian authorities to the incessant arrest, torture, detention and extortion of young Nigerians tech workers by the police.
The CEO of CcHub, a Lagos-based innovation hub, Bosun Tijani, and Jason Njoku, owner of iROKOTv are spearheading the campaign to stop the police from further intimidating young Nigerian techies with laptops.
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They were joined by 29 others in October to sign a statement, condemning police abuse of the country’s tech workers.
A statement by the campaigners called for “an end to the common practice where Nigerian policemen stop young people with laptops and unlawfully arrest, attack or, in extreme circumstances, kidnap them, forcing them to withdraw funds from their bank accounts in order to regain their freedom.”
The campaigners coined the #StopRobbingUs as a digital rallying point.
The statement added that the #StopRobbingUs movement would “consider a Class Action Lawsuit on police brutality.”
The campaign reached a climax after Toni Astro, a Lagos-based software engineer, was reportedly beaten, arrested, detained and then had money extorted from him by Nigeria’s Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) the last week of September.
On why they formed #StopRobbingUs, Bosun said: “We just got tired of the harassment. I personally got tired of it, which is why I spoke out and with other people, decided to take action,” he told TechCrunch.
He described the harassment of techies, as the best and worst of Nigeria colliding when it comes to shifting perceptions and stereotypes of the country.
“They’re taking one of the most positive things that are happening on the continent, but also Nigeria in the last 10 years, and turning it into self-destruction,” Tijani said of the law enforcement maltreatment of tech sector workers.
“It’s a gross abuse of police stop and search…The people that are supposed to protect us are ultimately harassing us and robbing us,” iRoko CEO, Jason Njoku, said of the profiling and extortion of young Nigerians with laptops and smartphones.
He described the theft of laptops, as taking away the means for tech workers to earn a living.
“A lot of people can work around not having a laptop, but if you’re a developer, how do you code without a laptop?” he said.
Njoku, Tijani and members of #StopRobbingUs team have been talking to senior members of President Muhammadu Buhari’s Enabling Business Environment task force and the Governor of Lagos State, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, the place in Nigeria where much of the country’s tech activity takes place.
“We’re looking to set up some kind of fund, which does advocacy and…also line up lawsuits…to force the issue in a more formal way,” said Njoku.
“It’s also an education thing. We’re reaching out to the powers that be, to engage and educate them to find some kind of solution to this.”
Both Njoku and Tijani see the #StopRobbingUs movement, as a forerunner to an innovation industry advocacy group in Nigeria to speak to the broader needs of the country’s tech community.
Nigeria is now a focal point for Venture Capital inflows, startup formation, and the entry of big global tech companies in Africa.
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“I still see a bright future for fintech and Internet companies in Nigeria. I think it makes sense for us to be much more vocal on the things that may or may not make sense to us. Technology, media and entertainment right now is the hope for a lot of young people in this country,” Njoku said.
He added his company, iROKO, and startups he’s invested in account for roughly 1,000 jobs.
“We’ll get to the point where tech will become one of the biggest drivers of employment in this country,” Njoku said.
“It makes sense for us to demand respect and recognition from the government to do the right thing to give us that fertile ground to keep building these companies.”