The Movement to #EndSARS with Ani Kayode Somtochukwu

In this episode we discuss the movement to #EndSARS with Ani Kayode Somtochukwu, a 21 year old openly gay Queer Liberation activist, writer and journalist living in Enugu state Nigeria. His work focuses on using visibility, and journalism to combat the pathologization and demonization of queer identities in Nigeria. He is the founder of the Queer Union for Economic and Social Transformation( QUEST), an anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist radical queer organization working to combat homophobia, transphobia, and the degeneration of Nigeria into a neo-fascist police state.

In this episode we talk to Ani Kayode about the #EndSARS movement, its relationship to the fight for dignity for queer people in Nigeria. We also talk about the absurdity of calls for redress from countries with their own ongoing regimes of anti-Black state violence and ongoing neocolonial relations in Africa. He also discusses the role of AFRICOM, IDF, and the World Bank in creating the conditions Nigerians are protesting against. Embeddied in this all is a deep critique of the colonial construct of policing itself.