Many developers are touting apps designed to report police brutality as they happen due to the resurgence of the #EndSARS hashtag.
The #EndSARS hashtag returned to the summit of Twitter trends over the weekend due to recent videos and stories concerning brutality at the hands of Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), a division of the Nigerian police.
We saw a couple of these apps and we took a look at some of them. The first one we came across was the Aabo app that is available on Apple AppStore and Google PlayStore. On PlayStore, Aabo has a size of 14MB and 500+ downloads.
The app was initially created in January 2020 but was recently updated in September 2020. After registering with your Nigerian phone number, you will be directed to add an emergency number from your contact list. Then you can use the app to report four cases of emergencies; R**e, Police Harassment, Health Emergency and Fire Emergency.
Aabo app, when already opened, requires a maximum of three taps to report an emergency and send your location to the contact on your speed dial. It is impressive but its design does not look professional and there are spelling errors on it.
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We also found another app that claims to serve the same purpose. The Sety app is one of the apps that came up due to the #EndSARS trend. It currently has 1000+ downloads on PlayStore. Unlike Aabo, this one requires you to enter details such as email address, full name and phone number.
Sety is also a bit more sophisticated in its offering as well. It provides more than a ‘Get Help’ button. You can see people around you who need help and you can choose to do something like a send a text of reassurance or actually go to the location.
The rise of these apps is reminiscent of the same thing happening this year between June and July in the US as police brutality against Black people rose. Apps like Five-O, Cop Watch, I’m Getting Arrested, SWAT and so on became popular.
It appears the same thing is happening in Nigeria as well. The #EndSars hashtags have reached the attention of notable individuals in the country like the Governor of Lagos State, Babajide Sanwo-Olu. However, as of when this article was published, there has been ‘seemingly’ no action carried out to end the problem.
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