They should not scrap the Special Anti-Robbery
Squad. It is like you are asking for the scrapping of the Nigeria Police Force.
It is not necessary to scrap SARS. The public only needs to ask that the alleged
excesses of the unit should be curtailed. When I was the CP in Kwara State, I
was able to curtail all the excesses of SARs under my command. All that members
of the public need to do is to ask for the telephone number of the state
Commissioner of Police, or anybody that they can reach (within the system) to
report when SARs is involved in any form of excess.
When I was in charge of Kwara State, I was
picking all calls and that was how I got sufficient feedback and addressed
issues including the excesses of SARs. It is just feedback. Once members
of the public can have an avenue to lodge whatever complaint they have against
SARs and such issues are promptly addressed, that is what is needful.
If you scrap SARs because of people’s complaint,
and people complain against Mobile Police Force, you scrap them; they complain
about traffic wardens, you scrap the warden police; what will be left?
You cannot say because one person is bad, then
the whole people are bad. Though there are allegations of some bad eggs among
SARS, there are many officers among them that are good.
Try every system; there are good and bad ones,
but once the bad ones are identified, they should be dealt with. Members of the
public should feel free and bold to report the excesses of members of SARS to
the appropriate authorities.
I always tell members of the police force that
the public are the members of their family. Not all members of their family are
police officers; they should be fair to all. I will advise all senior officers
to ensure that they create an avenue for the public to reach them once they
have complaints to make. •Mr. Olusola Amore (A retired Kwara State
Commissioner of Police)
The need for the creation of the Special Anti-Robbery
Squad in the Nigeria Police to bridge certain lacuna must not be lost on us. If
SARS is being affected by the Nigerian factor such as corruption and impunity,
that is not enough to scrap the unit. Rather, the issue should be addressed
squarely. Scrapping SARS will be counter-productive.
The question now begging for an answer is: What
should we do if our only source of water is polluted? We sure need experts to
make the source of water safe again. But we may need to avoid the water source
for a while, till we seek an alternative source.
At the same time, we should make sure that the
source of pollution is identified and stopped. So, it should be applied to the
SARS. Therefore, let the complaints by the Nigerian public be properly
investigated and errant officers thoroughly disciplined.
There should also be a public reporting mechanism
to expose the wrongdoing by the men of the unit. Another question is, where is
the assurance that these policemen won’t do the same if SARS is scrapped and
they are posted to different units?
My take is that, instead of throwing away the
baby with the bath water, it is advisable that we deal with the specific
issues. It is my view that police in general should rise up, scale up and redeem
their battered image. Despite the fact that the police are rated as one
of the worst in the world by an international organisation, the problem in SARS
mirrors the Nigeria police. •Mr. Alagoa Morris,
(Leader, Civil Liberties Organisation, Bayelsa State chapter)
It is no more news that officers of the Nigeria
Police under the Special Anti-Robbery Squad have turned themselves into
official criminals with legal backings in Nigeria. Established to curb cases of
armed robbery, the SARS personnel have turned themselves into a nuisance of
some sort.
Having a base in virtually all states of the
federation, this unit perpetrates the highest level of abuse of human rights.
They harass innocent citizens at will and arrest anybody without justification.
Their conducts and actions are so bad that they have successfully earned the
reputation of a force within the force. They kill and maim at will; they shoot
arbitrarily, search without recourse to the law and even detain beyond the
constitutionally required time. The funny fact is that this special unit that
was set up mainly to combat cases of armed robbery has turned itself to a petty
unit harassing and arresting anybody they feel like arresting. If you wear a
good shirt, you will be arrested; use a nice mobile phone, they will stop and
search you; and woe betides you if you have tattoo on your body.
The atrocities of this unit are so bad that we
are left with no choice but to ask for its disbandment. There seems to be no
other alternative to this as the operatives have abandoned their core
responsibility and are more interested in shadow chasing and harassing of
innocent citizens. We call on President Muhammadu Buhari, the Inspector-General
of Police, the Police Service Commission, the National Assembly and other relevant
bodies to look into these issues of human rights abuse by the SARS. •Olaseni
Shalom (Director, United Global Resolve for Peace)
Like the saying goes, there is no smoke without
fire. There is the need for the police to carry out a thorough investigation
into the activities of this unit, like the Inspector-General of Police has
promised. The confidence of the Nigerian people must be rebuilt if the police
must succeed. We have heard all sorts of stories about the atrocities of some
members of this special unit; they cannot become a law unto themselves. In a
country where our collective security is under serious threats by non-state
actors, we cannot afford to have state actors joining forces with non-state
actors to unleash terror on citizens they are supposed to protect. •Auwual
Musa Rafsanjani (Executive Director, Civil Society Legislative and Advocacy
Centre)
The formation of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad
across the nation is an affirmative admission by the police leadership in
Nigeria that the regular anti-robbery sections have failed. Unfortunately, a
very dangerous group of police officers were randomly selected to constitute
SARS with minimal consideration and training in community policing. The results
have been disastrous and an upswing in anti-police feelings, owing to the
insidious tactics of these officers who have become a law unto themselves.
They kill without consideration for the rule of
law, torture and cause serious bodily and mental harm to anybody unfortunate to
be their victim. They adopt all illegal torture tactics to extract confessions,
including denial of sleep, food and health care. Other stupid and illegal
methods and tactics they adopt is psychological warfare, wherein lawyers are
denied access to suspects and where allowed, lawyers are harassed and abused,
prompting many to avoid key and timely legal assistance.
It is a major administrative anomaly to have two
departments within the police – anti-robbery and SARS. In a bid to outdo each
other, officers from these competing departments adopt illegal and criminal
approaches to achieve their goals. In many states, many policemen lobby to be
posted to SARS because a lot of opportunities exist for milking hapless
Nigerians. They have become experts in extrajudicial killings and arraignment
of poor innocent persons on trumped up charges. Their use of intelligence is
poor. Rather, they use torture or perching on highways to arrest suspected
criminals.
Nigeria needs proactive policing and not reactive
policing. Proactive policing is all about intelligence and cultivation of
informants. But the Nigeria Police do not encourage this, either by not paying
or their unreliability to keep sources protected. The SARS should not be
scrapped. It has to be reorganised. A detailed and discrete background check
should be carried out on its members nationwide and those involved in
criminality should be removed. Officers should be trained on the human rights
of suspected criminals and also create institutional machinery essential to the
realisation of these rights and prevent its violations. •Jefferson
Uwoghiren (A Benin-based legal practitioner)
Compiled by: Success Nwogu,
Adelani Adepegba,
Alexander Okere and
Simon Utebor
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