The police inspector-general, Muhammed Adamu, on Sunday banned the dreaded special anti-robbery squad from patrolling Nigerian roads after widespread campaign to stop it.
Mr. Adamu in a statement by police spokesman Frank Mba said SARS and other tactical units within the police should cease patrol forthwith.
Henceforth, tactical squads, including Special Tactical Squad (STS), Intelligence Response Team (IRT), Anti-Cultism Squad and other tactical squads operating at the federal, zonal and command levels have been banned from carrying out routine patrols and other conventional low-risk duties – stop and search duties, checkpoints, mounting of roadblocks, traffic checks, etc – with immediate effect.
The announcement capped a dramatic weekend in which Nigerians demanded immediate scrapping of SARS after multiple extra-judicial deaths were linked to roger elements using the unit’s cover.
Campaign to #EndSARS has been recurring advocacy in Nigeria since 2017, but the police failed to resolve issues relating to it despite multiple pronouncements.
In 2018, the police said the unit would be reorganised, but no visible changes could be publicly ascribed to the changes. The latest announcement by Mr. Idris also appeared to be an admission that previous police solutions did not work.
Segun Awosanya and other leading activists against SARS said they wanted the unit to be abrogated entirely for a new department to be created.
This weekend, former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar, Bukola Saraki, Femi Kuti, youth minister Sunday Dare and other voices condemned SARS notoriety and demanded an urgent reform of the unit, which faces allegations it has become what it was created to tackle — armed robbery, kidnapping, extortion, blackmail, racketeering and even murder.
0 Comments