AKWAABA! Nigeria’s #EndSARS & Ghana’s #FixTheCountry Form Alliance

In an unprecedented collaboration that is bound to send chills down the spines of politicians in Ghana and Nigeria, the #EndSARs from Nigeria and #FixTheCountry youth movement in Ghana have on Sunday, June 6, 2021, agreed to work together to fight for socio-political equity in both countries.

The collaboration was kicked off via a Twitter voice chat feature called Twitter Space which saw over 2,000 members of #EndSARS and #FixTheCountry discuss strategies and synergies.

The collaboration is being championed by one by convenors of #FixTheCountry and Boaltito Rachel Olorunrinu Oduala (Savvy Rinu) the militant Nigerian celebrity and social media influencer who was at the epicentre of the nationwide EndSARS protests in Nigeria who clashed with security agencies in Nigeria, leading to over 99 deaths.

Both youth groups are fighting to change the political status quo of corruption and misgovernance in both countries.

During today’s first collaborative meeting between the two movements, Oliver Barker-Vormawor, one of the numerous spokespersons of #FixThCountry explained that the movement in Ghana was borne out of the youth having enough of mediocre leadership served Ghana over the years and that the youth are determined to have a systemic change in the country, to which Savvy Rinu responded by saying “Akwaaba” an Akan welcome word.

The #FixTheCountry Movement started off as a spontaneous response by young people to the stark corruption and dearth of social infrastructure in Ghana. The Akufo Addo administration had been taken unawares by the sudden massive mobilisation of the youth group which generated over 600,000 Tweets within 24 hours of their activation on May 4, 2021. 

Since then, #FixTheCountry has dominated social media, traditional and public discourse in Ghana, a reality that has made the government uncomfortable and has seen the relentless scheming of the security agencies to target supposed leaders of the amorphous youth group.

Since May 9, 2021, the Ghana Police Service (GPS) has illegally squashed several protests that the youth movement had attempted to stage.

However, this clampdown had only reinforced the resolve of the young people within the movement. 

In Nigeria, the EndSARs movement was activated to combat the brutal extra-judicial killing of citizens by the Special Police Unit called the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS).

The movement in Nigeria had similar characteristics as that of Ghana’s #FixTheCountry as it was spontaneously formed by disgruntled youth who proceeded to mount the biggest series of protests across every state in Nigeria.

In the coming weeks, the two youth movements are planning to pool resources and strategies to push coordinated advocacy for effective leadership and equitable governance in the two major West African countries.