AUTHOR=Sanusi Gumbi Khadijah , Baba Yahaya T. 

TITLE=Political trust and legitimacy crisis in the age of COVID-19: an assessment of the EndSARS protest in Nigeria

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Political Science

VOLUME=Volume 6 - 2024

YEAR=2024

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/political-science/articles/10.3389/fpos.2024.1334843

DOI=10.3389/fpos.2024.1334843

ISSN=2673-3145

ABSTRACT=The paper examined the manifestations of political trust deficits associated with people’s responses to the policy choices of Nigeria’s government during the COVID-19 pandemic. Like many other states, the African states and particularly the Nigerian government adopted WHO-recommended containment measures to limit the spread of the virus and the associated catastrophe. These measures included lockdowns, shutdowns, social distancing, and personal hygiene, among other preventive procedures. The worsening living conditions caused by the containment measures expectedly deepened resentment against governments in Africa with already poor records of public service delivery, accountability, transparency, and human rights. Nigeria was one of the African countries that experienced citizens’ backlash and violent outrage against government policy choices during COVID-19. Under the guise of fighting police brutality, youths staged mass anti-government protests that transformed into large-scale violence, particularly in the southern parts of the country, otherwise known as the ‘EndSARS Protests’. The protests were conceived against police brutality in the enforcement of COVID-19 measures. This paper examines the outbreak of EndSARS protests as a transformation of the deepening of political trust deficits in the age of COVID-19. It adopted a qualitative approach, using documentary evidence such as newspaper reports and official documents as instruments of data collection. The Institutional Performance Theory guided the paper. The theory assumes that the actual performance of government determines citizens' level of trust and confidence in public institutions. The paper found that perennial government inefficiency, limited accountability, and transparency, as well as poor human rights records of the government and its agencies, particularly the police, exacerbated an already existing political trust deficit amongst the people in Nigeria. This was manifested in the outburst of a large-scale violent outrage by the youths as a protest to the government's containment measures, widespread dysfunctional governmental institutions, and particularly police brutality. The paper concluded that building trust is particularly important for governments, as this can be achieved through output sense, the provision of public goods, or social support.