By Rev. Udechukwu Nnaji
Like wildfire, it spread across the country and beyond. Accumulated anger from a citizenry that has suffered so much dehumanisation. Now added with Police brutality.
A nationwide outcry against the brutality of a Police unit meant to protect the people from the menace of armed robbery and kidnapping in a country with a high crime rate. But the unit turned anti-people which provoked protests across the cities of Nigeria.
In the beginning, there was the usual silence in Aso Rock, Nigeria’s seat of power notorious for I-don’t-care-attitude on earlier complaints about the cruelty of the Police in general and killings of innocent people by SARS in particular.
But this time, the silence was not golden as the #EndSARS tsunami has entered the residences of the President and his deputy and converted their two daughters to #EndSARS activism.
There were polarisation in Aso Rock, the National Assembly and all government apparatus between the “ayes" and the nays” to EndSARS. Who knows, the wives and staffs of the President and his vice would have been the next converts of the #EndSARS protests if an action had been delayed for some few minutes.
Then Aso Rock caved in. The President, a military General, bowed. Not to superior gun-power. But to the POWER of the PEOPLE. He muttered something into the ears of the Inspector General of Police, Mr Mohammed Adamu.
Adamu, the President whispered, the situation is frangible, please, don’t allow it to break. You must handle with care, the President must have muttered into the ears of the Inspector General of Police that it’s a season that calls for a cautious sagacity.
It’s all about a Police unit known as Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) which became a miscarried vision. Created to be "pro-people but turned anti-people." Criminals infiltrated the security unit and the art of criminality was incredibly taken to a higher level.
Before now, the conventional armed robber would rob his victim of what was available on him and thereafter flee. But officers of SARS would abduct their victim, take him to any place of their choice including makeshift office or an uncompleted house, lock him up, negotiate and take their victim to an ATM or POS to withdraw the negotiated amount after which it became their prerogative to send the victim home either here in the present world or to the world beyond. It depends on the side of luck the victim found himself at the time of operation.
They deviated completely from the mandate of the Police unit. They frame-up allegations against people to incriminate them as it pleases them in order to extort money.
They became the envy of those who chose to be patriotic. Riding on cars everyone knows wouldn’t have come from their genuine salaries. Most of them have properties all over the place, purchased with proceeds of crime. The good ones among them were seen as foolish and stupid for being MUGUS who NEVER SABI ANYTHING.
They were winning converts day by day. After all, if you cannot beat them, you join them. Though they were Police officers, they were always in mufti. Operated in unmarked vehicles and had no name tag on their clothes. They were government agents, licensed to handle guns and ammunition. They were always right, only very few victims survived their brutality and most with a painful price. They would kill an innocent person and label him an armed robber or a kidnapper. Who are you to question officers of the Almighty SARS?
For them, every youth is a criminal who must pay a ransom before he could be allowed to continue with his car. Any youth with a laptop or a good smartphone is a cyber-criminal who must either settle or be paraded before the press on framed-up allegations or be sent to the other world. All depending on the mood of the officers.
Many innocent persons mostly youths have died, many maimed,
They own us and we live at their pleasure.
Yet the real armed robbers and kidnappers enjoy their crime-proceeds without molestation.
Now, the Inspector General of Police has disbanded the deadly anti-people Police unit. So we were told. We were also told the officers of SARS will be deployed to other units of the Nigeria Police Force. And a new Police unit to be announced in the place of the disbanded SARS. Here lie my fears. We are about to board a “one-chance” vehicle. We might end up “selling a monkey to buy an APE.”
Deploying these men to other Police units may increase lawlessness in the Nigeria Police Force. And dismissals or pre-retirements of the officers will swell the number of armed robbers, kidnappers and other undesirable elements on the streets.
But the name “SARS” is not the problem. The personnel and the mode of operation are the real problems and these could not be solved by the mere announcement of the dissolution and replacement of the unit with any other Police unit.
Unless there is a clear reform in the entire Nigeria Police, the disbandment of the SARS may remain a paper exercise and the formation of a new unit as claimed by the Inspector General of Police a mere change in nomenclature. Total REFORM remains the ideal thing in the Nigeria Police Force.
