Nigeria, May 12 -- Florence Nwokoro's dream for 2020 was to expand her business. She was making headway until October 19 when everything went up in flames. That day, her shop and many others at the Apo-Kabusa market in Abuja were torched by arsonists during the ENDSARS protests that shook Nigeria for weeks that month. The market was one of the worst scenes of violence as hoodlums attacked protesters, looted shops and destroyed properties estimated at hundreds of millions of naira.

Mrs Nwokoro said she had a foreboding of the mayhem. Her husband had had a dream the night before of her shop being vandalised. But they were helpless to stop it.

"We stay around here but we dared not come when they put fire on my shop. I was inside with my hu...