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Lagos and Ogbomoso, Nigeria — Agbeze Ifeanyi Matthew huddled on the ground in fear, thinking his city had become a battlefield as a barrage of army gunfire rang out around him.

Beside him that night, hundreds of other young protesters were gathered at the Lekki tollgate in Nigeria’s economic capital, Lagos, waving green and white national flags and singing the national anthem.

The crowd tried to lay low, but a few minutes later, Matthew felt something hit his chest followed by a stream of warm liquid. When he looked down, he saw that he had been shot – the bullet entering his chest before exiting through his back.

Matthew stood up and tried to run to safety, but stumbled, fell, and passed out. His fellow protesters carried him to the nearby General Hospital, where he was treated before being transferred to another facility.

“I had lost a lot of blood because there were two openings. While I was being treated, I could hear the doctors and nurses talking, but I couldn’t react or open my eyes,” the 35-year-old content creator told Al Jazeera. “I thought I was going to die.”

The bullet fractured two ribs, but Matthew was one of the lucky ones to make it out alive. That October 20, 2020 night, there were 48 casualties, including a dozen people killed, after Nigeria’s military opened fire on unarmed demonstrators.

#EndSARS protests

Five years ago, thousands of young Nigerians, including Matthew, participated in the nationwide #EndSARS protests – a two-week long demonstration against the rogue police unit, the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, or SARS, which stood accused of a slew of crimes including harassment, rape, profiling, extortion, and robbery.

One of the reasons Matthew – who usually had dreadlocked, red- and gold-dyed hair – joined the demonstrations was because he says he was regularly profiled and harassed by SARS officers on his commutes in Lagos. Once, they even told him they could shoot him dead and there would be no repercussions, he recalled.

After years of complaints, and seeming impunity, demonstrators went out into the streets to demand the disbandment of the SARS unit, police reforms, and better governance from the country’s leaders.

But the peaceful protests were regularly met with violent responses from the security forces. At first, tear gas and water cannons were fired, then live rounds were used to disperse crowds across protest venues nationwide.

The day Matthew was shot was one of the most violent, and deadly, and is now known as the Lekki massacre. But five years later, despite the Lagos government promising justice for the victims and the establishment of panels of inquiry into the violence in different states, Nigerians say justice has not been served.

Anietie Ewang, a Nigeria researcher at Human Rights Watch, told Al Jazeera that the country moves on too quickly from events such as the #EndSARS protests, and this is reflective of the impunity within which Nigeria’s security forces operate.

“It is also reflective of the failure of our justice system,” she said. “I think the two are really connected. If you have a justice system that is unable to hold our security forces accountable or even hold other actors in government accountable, then we are going to keep on having this type of scenario.”

Perpetual pain, frustration

The day after the Lekki shooting, Matthew remained in hospital being treated.

His siblings visited him, and some of the protest organisers also provided food and hygiene supplies such as towels and tissue paper, which he said helped his stay.

“While at the hospital, I saw some of the other people brought in from the protest site. Some of them died while receiving treatment. I think it is a miracle I am alive,” he said.

The day after the shooting, the governor of Lagos, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, also visited the protesters’ ward in the hospital and in a statement said the order to shoot them came from “forces beyond our direct control”. He promised the state would pay for victims’ hospital bills. Matthew said he did not have to pay for his hospital expenses.

But after he was discharged, he struggled to recover, so some people in the protest movement raised money for him to get an X-ray. That’s when he discovered that his two injured ribs were colliding, which continues to be a major source of pain.

Today, he is yet to get the surgery he needs, because he cannot afford it. He remains in perpetual pain but also frustration, he says, because justice has not been served, no one has been charged in court, and neither the military nor the government has taken responsibility.

Different states set up panels of inquiry into compensation for victims of SARS-related abuses as well as security forces’ violations during the protests. Following the Lagos State Judicial Panel of Inquiry, the state has paid at least 410 million naira ($279,000) in compensation to 70 victims and families of victims, while other states have also made payments.

Temitope Ajayi, senior special assistant to the president on media and publicity, said the federal government had no role in the setup for seeking justice and accountability for victims.

“The states set up an investigative panel, and I think Lagos state was the epicentre [of the protests], and they did what they were supposed to do,” he said.

Al Jazeera attempted to contact the Lagos state government spokesperson and Lagos police by phone, but did not receive a response.

No justice for the victims

Matthew’s ordeal is just one of many across Nigeria.

In Ogbomoso, Oyo state, 222km (138 miles) away from Lagos, the family of 21-year-old Jimoh Isiaka – the first person who died in the 2020 nationwide protests – lives in anguish.

Jimoh Atanda continues to relive the day his son was shot dead.

Atanda, a bus driver, was returning from a trip delivering dried fish in southwestern Nigeria, when neighbours called to tell him that his son had been shot. By the time he got to the site of the shooting, Jimoh had been rushed to the hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

“I didn’t know what to do,” Atanda told Al Jazeera. “I was confused and just drove down to the hospital where he was taken. No one should experience the loss of their child.”

Days later, members of parliament and the Oyo state governor visited the family and assured them that there would be compensation and justice. However, neither not materialised, Atanda says.

Over a period of four months, he attended a series of panels of inquiry into what happened at the protests. But none of the promises made have been fulfilled half a decade later – the policemen who killed his son still roam free, and the family did not receive any money, Atanda said.

Al Jazeera attempted to contact the Oyo state government spokesperson by phone about compensation and efforts to secure justice, but was unable to reach them.

“What we see is a lot of lip service that speaks to such efforts at the beginning where there is a lot of clamouring and push against the authorities but nothing after that initial period,” HRW’s Ewang said.

Atanda is still grappling with the death of his son, but says his wife is faring worse than him. She has been in and out of the hospital with health issues since Jimoh died, and things are usually worse in October, the month he was killed, when her grief becomes heightened.

Their burden is only slightly eased when they see Jimoh’s child.

“Because he had a child, we are a little bit consoled. It is unbearable. One must just accept in their mind that God has done his will,” Atanda said.

When asked what he would like from the government, he said, “there is nothing they can do for us that will be equivalent to our dead son”. But, he added, “we want them to do what is right.”

Justice for the victims has been obstructed due to the “systemic failure of state institutions” to act with integrity, according to Adewunmi Emoruwa, the global policy lead at Abuja-based public strategy firm Gatefield.

“At its core, #EndSARS was a call for governance rooted in accountability and respect for human dignity,” he said. “The violent response and the sustained silence that followed exposed deep institutional weaknesses: a culture of impunity, a fragile rule of law, and a state-citizen relationship built on distrust.”

Difficult to accept loss

After the protests ended, the government tried to deny the October 20 Lekki shooting.

Lai Mohammed, then minister of information and culture, called it a “phantom massacre” and said the military did not shoot at protesters. Before the shooting, nearby CCTVs were disabled. The morning after, waste trucks with brushes were deployed to clean away the blood and bullet shells.

Still, there was overwhelming undeniable evidence: the shooting was livestreamed on Instagram by Obianuju Udeh, a popular disc jockey known as DJ Switch. Later on, a panel of inquiry found the army culpable in the shooting.

The Lagos state government also tried to secretly bury 103 people killed during the course of the protests in different parts of Lagos before pressure by activists and civil right groups forced them to stop.

HRW’s Ewang said it is difficult for families of victims to accept loss or continue knocking endlessly on doors until justice is served.

“It is pertinent that we see this through, and it shouldn’t just be on them. It should also be on the larger society to keep on discussing and pushing for this accountability to happen,” she said.

The #EndSARS protests were a moment of rare unity in a country often divided along ethnic, political and religious lines, many Nigerians say, and the youth galvanising for improved socioeconomic conditions, among their other demands, gave more people confidence to participate.

“It is the only time I have ever seen in this Nigeria that one tribe did not discriminate against the other; we were all in unity and I perceived something great was going to happen from there,” Matthew reflected.

However, the #EndSARS experience also left him disillusioned, especially as he was shot while waving Nigeria’s flag, contrary to popular belief that soldiers and the police respected the country’s symbol too much to shoot at it.

At the same time, many feel policing has not improved.

In the immediate aftermath of the protests, the government disbanded the SARS unit, and officers were reabsorbed into other units within the police force. But the disbandment did not put an end to police abuse, say Nigerians.

October trauma

Five years after the #EndSARS violence, policy analyst Emoruwa said the absence of justice reflects not only the failure to prosecute those responsible, but also the erosion of public faith in the state’s moral authority.

“True justice requires legal accountability, prosecuting the perpetrators. It demands institutional reform, ensuring that security agencies are subject to civilian oversight,” he said.

“And it calls for collective truth-telling and acknowledgment because nations that refuse to confront their own violence cannot build credible futures.”

Meanwhile, in Ikorodu, a city northeast of Lagos, Matthew is still reeling from all he lost five years ago.

The day after the shooting at Lekki, while he lay in hospital, his septuagenarian father went into shock after hearing the news about his son, and died.

While still recovering from the shooting, Matthew lost his job at a gas company. He has not found full-time work since.

As another October comes around, Matthew fears he won’t be able to sleep well because it is a month when he is reminded of his trauma. All the while, he waits for justice that does not seem to come.

The Corporation For Public Broadcasting’s reductions are existential for Scott Smith.

He is the general manager of Allegheny Mountain Radio, which he runs alongside programme manager Heather Nidly. The spending and tax cuts were slashed as part of the massive spending and tax cuts bill signed into law in July, according to US President Donald Trump. As a result, the station, which has been on air for more than four decades, lost 65 percent of its funding.

We are here to support our communities by providing them with news, entertainment, emergency alerts, and school closings. We do lost and found pet notices. Funeral announcements are what we do. We have a listing of community events that is read multiple times a day. Weather forecasting is done by us. We’re a critical part of the community”, Smith told Al Jazeera.

The US Congress can revoke funding that had already been approved by the Trump rescissions bill, which also removes $ 9 billion in funding, including $ 1 billion from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). At the end of September, those funds officially dried up.

The previous Congress had already allocated the funds for 2026 and 2027’s public media. Now stations are scrambling to find ways to fill the holes.

Following the publication of a suggestive letter allegedly written by Trump to the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein for his birthday, the Trump administration has pursued news outlets that have covered him, including the Wall Street Journal. In September, he tried to sue The New York Times for allegedly being a “virtual mouthpiece” for the Democratic Party.

Because of federal tax dollars, he has a significant influence over the public media. The White House first signed an executive order to defund public media in May. Because Congress makes funding decisions, not the White House, that was quickly blocked.

Next, Trump pressured Congressional Republicans to put forth the rescissions bill that fulfilled the mission of his previous executive order. In May, the White House made a list of NPR and PBS segments with liberal bias, which included numerous segments about the trans community’s experiences, to support his call for cuts.

The White House also cited a report alleging PBS favoured Democrats. The openly partisan Media Research Center, which claims to promote conservative values, released that report.

A key, but overlooked, problem with the cuts is that they overwhelmingly harm stations that do not even cover the White House or much national politics at all.

One of those stations is Allegheny Mountain Radio (AMR). Comprising three affiliates for three counties straddling the West Virginia and Virginia border, on their airwaves, listeners will find gospel, folk and country music, as well as coverage of local football games and town hall meetings.

The national newscast for NPR is accompanied by AMR, and more importantly, it serves as the on-the-ground voice when bad weather strikes.

Unlike in other regions of the county, there is no other alternative to get real-time local news. The nearest neighborhood news station is a few hours away, separated by winding country roads. When there’s severe weather, AMR is the only way locals get vital information like road closure announcements because of floodwaters.

“Just a few years ago, we received a pour of rain pouring down and drew down parts of the county. At that point, when something like that happens, the radio station really is the only way to get that information out quickly to our listeners and let them know where it’s happening”, AMR programme manager Nidly told Al Jazeera.

Because of its close proximity to the National Radio Quiet Zone (NRQZ) near the Green Bank Observatory, which restricts the use of radio frequency and other signal methods so that they do not interfere with their equipment, AMR is in a region of the nation where cellphone signal and wireless access are sparse. This requires special equipment to point radio signals away from the observatory.

There is only a passing amount of business case for a station given the low population density in the area. But there is a case for public service. AMR is used by the community for emergency alerts, even on a personal level. During major storms, Smith said, people have shown up at their stations when their phones stopped working, asking if AMR could broadcast a message to let their family and friends know they were safe.

Due to limited local talent and resources, these stations may not receive the same level of donor support as larger public stations across the nation despite their strong community focus.

It is trying. The station is actively looking for donations on its website to keep afloat.

While small community stations – like those serving Bath and Pocahontas Counties in West Virginia, and Highland County, Virginia, through AMR – don’t produce national newscasts or air segments that ruffle feathers in Washington, they are still the ones that are most at risk of being hit hardest.

“These cuts will have a negative impact on small stations like ours,” said one station. We feel like we are the baby that got thrown out with the bathwater because there’s so much emphasis on the talking points around NPR and PBS. According to Smith, “the rest of us, the small community stations, have completely been forgotten in this equation.”

The cuts, however, hit stations across the US in big markets too. New York City’s WNYC lost 4% of its funding. WBUR in Boston, San Francisco’s KLAW, and KERA in Dallas, Texas, all saw 5 percent cuts.

As their hosts say during pledge drives, stations like these have sizable donor bases or “listeners like you.” Big market stations might be able to make up the difference, says Alex Curley, a former product manager at NPR who recently launched a platform called Adopt A Station, which shows which public media stations are at most risk of losing funding.

“When you think about stations that receive 50% or more of their revenue from the government, it’s not because they’re asking for a handout. It’s a literal public service for those stations”, Curley told Al Jazeera.

However, that donor base is less plentiful in counties with a sparse population and a limited economy. That’s the case with AMR.

“Our area is very rural,” he said. We are an area where there are not a whole lot of businesses. Therefore, Smith continued, “There is no way that that amount of income can be recouped by additional donations or underwriting.”

In a July Substack post, Curley, who was involved in NPR station finances until he left the network in 2024 amid layoffs, said that 15 percent of stations are at risk of closure. His website has offered a temporary rest.

“I only expected maybe a few dozen people to visit the site. A few donations that went to a station in danger would be my greatest hope. It’s]the website] been shared thousands of times. I’ve even heard from stations that have been warned about closing. They told me they’re getting an influx of donations from out of state through the site. The response has been incredible, according to Curley.

However, he argues, this is a temporary fix.

When people forget about public media, in six months, a year, and two years, there will be real danger. These stations basically are losing federal funding forever. Although donations are fantastic in the immediate future, they will need to figure out how to keep donors engaged and money flowing to them, or they may close, according to Curley.

“Public radio is also a lifeline, connecting rural communities to the rest of the nation, and providing life-saving emergency broadcasting and weather alerts. In a statement released on July 18 following the Senate vote, NPR’s Katherine Maher stated that nearly 3-in-4 Americans rely on their public radio stations for news and alerts regarding public safety.

“In fact, while the Senate considered amendments, a 7.3 earthquake struck off the coast of Alaska, prompting three coastal stations to start broadcasting live tsunami warnings, urging their communities to head to high ground”, Maher said.

Maher declined to give an interview request to Al Jazeera.

PBS faces similar pressures, and many of its stations are also at risk of closure, according to Adopt A Station’s data.

“These cuts will have a significant impact on all of our stations, but they will have an especially negative impact on smaller stations and those that serve large rural areas. Many of our stations, which provide access to free, unique local programming and emergency alerts, will now be forced to make hard decisions in the weeks and months ahead”, PBS president and CEO Paula Kerger said in a statement after the Senate vote.

Al Jazeera requested more comment, but Kerger did not respond.

The push to defund public media isn’t a new one for the GOP. The media is not a fundamental part of government, according to republicans’ longstanding claims. In 2012, GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney said he would eliminate subsidies to PBS – during a debate moderated, ironically, by then PBS NewsHour anchor Jim Lehrer.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich vowed to “zero out” CPB funding in the 1990s, arguing that it should be privatized. And in the 1980s, Ronald Reagan attempted to slash $80m from public media – roughly $283m today – though Congress blocked the move.

Following global reductions

Cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting are the latest wave of the White House cutting back on government-funded media arms, including reductions to the US Agency for Global Media, led in part by senior adviser Kari Lake.

Former Phoenix, Arizona news anchor Lake is known for defying the 2020 election results, which saw Trump defeat Democrat Joe Biden for president. She is also known for promoting baseless conspiracy theories and for refusing to accept her own defeat for governor and senator bids in Arizona in 2022 and 2024, respectively.

Since mid-March, Voice of America (VOA), which hasn’t published any new stories or uploaded any new videos to its YouTube page, has been effectively shuttered by her.

Last month, a federal judge in Washington blocked the firing of workers at VOA, which affected more than 500 staffers. The Trump administration vowed to appeal the decision, branding it “outrageous.”

Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which broadcasts in 27 languages across 23 countries, faced challenges similar to VOA. With $6.2 million in emergency funding, the European Union has remained committed to keeping the network operational.

Representatives for the US Agency for Global Media did not respond to our request for comment.

Increasing threats to freedom of expression

These cuts come alongside other threats to freedom of expression in the private sector. Soon after the funding cuts were passed, Paramount made the decision to axe The Late Show. The host, comedian Stephen Colbert – a longtime critic of the president – had only days earlier called out Paramount, the show’s parent company, for settling a lawsuit with Trump.

Trump claimed that Kamala Harris’ interview with him for president in 2024 was fake, which led to the lawsuit. Although the network had initially called the lawsuit meritless, it ultimately settled for $16m. Colbert referred to the settlement as a “big fat bribe,” noting that Paramount had a planned merger with Skydance Media, which was owned by David Ellison, the son of Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, a key Trump ally. The merger has since been approved. According to Paramount, the decision is purely financial in nature.

Months later, following stand-up comedian Jimmy Kimmel’s comments on Charlie Kirk’s death, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Brendan Carr appeared on a right-wing podcast to criticise the remarks and urged Disney – the parent company of ABC, where Jimmy Kimmel Live airs – to cancel the show.

One of the largest TV station owners in the US, Nexstar Media Group, announced it would no longer air the program, pending FCC approval. Disney subsequently suspended the show, though the decision was short-lived, as it returned to the airwaves within a week.