On September 6, 1992, Ezra Rimdan arrived in Lagos from Minna ready to start a new phase of his career. On his way to a guest house, he encountered a traffic jam at a police checkpoint. This was out of place so close to midnight. Curious about the problem, he left his driver in the car and walked towards the police officers in charge. He did not return alive.

A Normal Sunday

The Rimdan family was having a typical Nigerian Sunday–visiting family friends, having lunch, and lingering over conversation–enjoying each other’s company.

When the family returned home that evening, Nanji’s mum and older brother visited neighbours while she stayed home with two other siblings.

Nanji knew something was wrong when, around 6 pm, an aunt she had not seen in a long time came to visit. Other family members, including the family they had visited earlier, started to show up, too.

But it was when an aunt arrived crying and screaming that Nanji, 15, knew without a doubt that something bad had happened. To who, or about what, she was not sure. But the knot in her stomach tightened.

Then Nanji’s mum stumbled in, untying her wrapper and asking no one in particular, but hoping someone had the answer, “Where is Ezra? Where is Ezra?”

Ezra the son, Ezra the father

Ezra grew up poor. His father worked in the Church of Christ in Nations (COCIN) when it was first established in Langtang, Plateau and later became a teacher. When he suddenly died in a car accident, Ezra’s mum was left with four young children to cater for by herself. It did not help that her in-laws threw her out and cut her off. Ezra and his siblings had to struggle on their own—to feed, go to school and survive each day. Because of what Ezra and his siblings went through, he emphasised the importance of education to his children and would encourage them to read and go to school. He ensured they understood their privilege and were never rude to lesser privileged people—it could have been them.

Whenever Ezra wanted Nanji to do something quickly, he would sing to her:

"Tick says the clock,

"Tick tick,

"What you have to do, do quick."

He was always ready to teach Nanji, and she was always ready to learn from him. But their relationship was not flawless. When she was in primary four, fed up with her mum's constant scolding, Nanji conspired with the house help. They planned to run away somewhere they considered more peaceful—her aunt's house. Their joy was short-lived because everyone soon knew where they went. Her punishment happened on the centre table in their living room, the memory of how the koboko wrapped around her body each time it landed would never leave her. It was just four strokes, but she remembers every single one. It was the first and only time he ever beat her.

Ezra was a high-ranking officer, commissioned into the Nigerian Army in 1970, so he moved around a lot. He married an Igbo woman, and they had four children in different states: the first was in Osun, Nanji in Cross River, the third was in Lagos, and the last was born in Enugu. His family eventually settled in Jos after his wife got a job there. While he still had to travel for his job, he ensured they all found their way to him every holiday, regardless of where he was stationed. Every meeting was an adventure; he would take them to the tourist attractions wherever he was. In Niger, it was the Shiroro Dam; in Taraba, it was the Mambilla Plateau. After a stint in Yola, he was deployed to Lagos.

The Evening At The Police Checkpoint In Lagos

When high-ranking military officers get a new deployment, they are entitled to a government-sponsored apartment. But when Colonel Ezra Rimdan was transferred to Lagos, the officer who previously occupied his assigned apartment was yet to move out. So he stayed in a guest house.

That Sunday, his brother’s driver had been driving him when they arrived at a traffic jam caused by a police checkpoint. Ezra left the driver in the car to check what caused the delay.

He seemed done with his conversation with the police, and the driver saw him walking back. That was when the officers fired the first shots at him. As the bullets hit, Ezra started running towards the car, but he fell after a few steps. The driver panicked and fled with the car. Eyewitnesses said police walked up to Ezra, 47 years old, and shot him again before they put him in the boot of a Volkswagen and drove away.

The panicked driver raced to a party Ezra was supposed to attend that evening. High-ranking military officers at the party included General John Nanzip Shagaya, General Jeremiah Useni, the Comptroller of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Ezra’s brother, who was the Assistant Comptroller of the NCS, and other top officers of the Langtang mafia, a clique of prominent military men from Langtang, a town in Plateau renowned for producing a significant number of officers in the Nigerian Armed Forces.  They gained prominence during the Ibrahim Babangida regime between 1985 and 1993.

When the driver told the party what had happened, they trooped to the checkpoint with their ADCs and guards.  It was an intimidating sight that made the police officers flee the scene in terror—they had just killed someone influential and they were going to pay for it.

When they found Ezra’s body in an abandoned bus at a police station, he had been shot eight times—five in the back and three in the head. He was lying down, his head resting under his hand, one of his legs folded. It was how Nanji said he liked to rest when he was really tired.

Police vs Army

The mindless police killing of Ezra enraged the army, and soldiers in Lagos retaliated. They began assaulting police officers in uniform whenever they encountered them. Policemen would leave their homes in mufti and only change into their uniforms whenever they got to their stations.

The Divisional Police Officers (DPOs) ordered their men to leave their duty posts outside and return to the stations to reduce the chances of confrontations. The absence of police officers left a security vacuum, allowing crimes to thrive more openly. Criminal activities spiked.

After a joint panel of police and senior military officers investigated the incident, the police officers responsible for Ezra’s murder were arrested. SP Abass Makanjuola, Inspector Victor Aburime and Sergeant Yabduya Gargea faced murder charges in court.

The feud between the police and the army ended. However, the damage had been done, and criminals made people's lives hell on the streets of Lagos. Order needed to be restored.

The Story of SARS

Simeon Danladi Midenda, a Superintendent of Police, made a name for himself as the head of the Anti-Robbery Unit of the State CID in Benin City, Edo State. Under his leadership, the state recorded nine straight days without a single robbery. This feat received a commendation from Aliyu Attah, the Inspector-General of Police, who ordered his transfer to Lagos soon after.

His new mission was to create an anti-robbery squad capable of ridding Lagos of its armed robbery problem. To differentiate his new squad from the three other existing Anti-Robbery Squad units in Lagos at the time, Midenda named it the Special-Anti Robbery Squad (SARS). The unit started with fifteen fully-armed men and two plain-coloured Peugeot station wagons to combat violent crimes, especially armed robbery. Perhaps SARS was effective because officers dressed casually, a disguise that made it hard for people to identify them as law enforcers. This covert strategy allowed them to gather intelligence efficiently and successfully apprehend criminals.

As crime surged in other states outside Lagos, SARS expanded across Nigeria. Although they faced challenges, the unit effectively fought crime for many years. However, over the decades, SARS officers acquired a reputation for brutality.

In the opinion of Stanley Ikechukwu, Head of Operations at SBM Intelligence, a data intelligence firm in Nigeria, SARS grew brutal after the change in governance from military to civilian rule in 1999 because the standard of accountability and discipline diminished. They went rogue and would harass, extort and harm young people for frivolous reasons like owning laptops or sporting dreads and tattoos. For years, Nigerians complained about the not-so-secret transgressions of a unit created to protect them. Those complaints were met with ineffective half measures, despite a handful of protests in a few states towards the end of the 2010s.

An Amnesty International (AI) investigation published in June 2020 uncovered at least 82 cases of torture and extra-judicial execution of citizens by SARS officers between January 2017 and May 2020. Even worse, not a single officer was prosecuted.

Ezra’s Granddaughter, Khloe

As a child, Khloe often wondered why she didn't have two grandpas like her classmates. One day after school, she asked her mum, and Nanji gave her a child-friendly version of events.

Khloe remembers her mum’s stories about anything often starting with, “Before my father died,” or “When my father died.” She would talk about how he taught her how to wash acha; how when she ran away from home, more than the pain from the beating she received, she hated that he was disappointed in her; about the different states she visited, and how a lot of things changed when he died. Through these stories, Khloe understood the profound impact her grandpa had on their family and how the careless actions of others could ripple through countless lives.

In October 2020, as young Nigerians mobilised nationwide and across the world to demand the complete dissolution of SARS under the banner of #EndSARS, it felt personal for Khloe. At 21, she was aware of SARS’ dangers; friends had harrowing stories of harassment. It was about justice for her, and she would not be silent.

It was in the heat of the protests that Nanji revealed to Khloe the connection between her grandpa’s murder and the creation of SARS. She marvelled at how unfortunate it was and wanted to take to the streets to scream #EndSARS, like thousands of other young Nigerians. But her dad would not allow it because security forces were already attacking protesters with tear gas, water canons and even guns, resulting in injuries and deaths.

She tried to convince him, showed her frustration, and even presented him with arguments, but he would not budge. He understood her anger but did not want to take any chances. Khloe was not deterred. She joined the protest online and was as loud as she could be. The online advocacy around #EndSARS reached millions of people worldwide and pressured the government to act.

On  October 11, 2020, the Inspector-General of Police, Adamu Mohammed, ordered the immediate dissolution of SARS and the redeployment of its officers. It was a victory for the protesters but was not enough to put an end to the widespread culture of police brutality.

Nigerian youths wanted a complete reform of the whole police force, so the protest continued with more demands for accountability. On October 20, security forces arrived under the cover of darkness to attack unarmed protesters at the Lekki Toll Gate in Lagos, less than twenty kilometres from Herbert Macaulay Way, Yaba where police officers gunned down Ezra.

Officially, the scale of the toll gate bloodshed is still disputed four years later, but it has become a rallying point for a generation of Nigerians.

Ezra the legacy

Khloe never met her grandpa, yet his presence is woven into her own existence. Through her mother’s stories, Ezra is more than a memory—Nanji insists Khloe has her grandpa’s athleticism and kindness.

Sometimes, in the most unexpected places, she feels the warmth of the community her grandpa had nurtured. When she mentions her lineage, faces light up.

"Colonel Rimdan? The same Colonel Rimdan?" In these moments, she remembers that her grandpa's legacy is not confined to her family alone.