•What they need is reform, training – Experts
By Cosmas Omegoh
The heat is on; the pressure is increasing. Emotions are running deep like a fountain in a rift valley following increasing demand for the scraping of the police’s Special Anti Robbery Squad unit, SARS.
Recently, the ENDSARS campaigners re-launched their bid to pressure government to do away with that arm of the police. A certain Segun Awosanya had launched the ENDSARS campaign on the social media, calling on Nigerians to rise up against the infamous police unit which had consistently been accused of gross violation of human rights.
The ENDSARSNOW at its rally at Unity Fountain Abuja, made a four-point demand, one being an outright scrapping of the entire SARS unit across the country. It also demanded the constitution of a panel by the Police Service Commission to reform the Nigeria Police in its entirety. It went on to demand that a public hearing be held at the Senate to enable Nigerians to table their grievances and submission of memoranda on reforms of the Nigeria Police, including recommendations on the amendment of laws to ensure a more efficient police force. It also demanded investigations into complaints filed against SARS officers.
Since the campaign was launched, more and more Nigerians have been voicing their concerns some doing so vehemently.
Expectedly, those in favour of the scraping of the agency appear to be more in number; and their voices are louder. They are latching on the ENDSARSNOW battle cry, calling on President Muhammadu Buhari and the Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, to scrap the agency forthwith. They are citing a legion of human rights abuses: extra judicial killings, extortions, unlawful detention and armed robbery incidents committed by the agency’s operatives.
And the biggest of such voice seemed to be that of former vice president of the country, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar. Atiku had decried the way and manner the operators harass the youths of the country, declaring that it had no place in a democracy.
“The #EndSARS protest shows Nigerian youths are upset and the matter needs urgent attention.
“Every day, we encourage our young people to become entrepreneurs. Buying a laptop to earn a living shouldn’t attract harassment.
“I commend our young people for protesting these injustices peacefully online, and encourage the IG of @PoliceNG to take these complaints seriously.
“I also urge the National Assembly to look into these complaints, and address the human rights issues. Reforms are urgently needed,” he said.
Indeed, there is hardly anyone who has encountered SARS that has not got one sad tale or the other to tell. One of such is Yinka Olateju, a young entrepreneur who lives in Lagos. Listen to him. “I was in a vehicle on this day going to Ikeja from Ogba when SARS operatives stopped us. They demanded to see the contents of my bag and I showed them. When they saw my laptop, they demanded its receipt. When I told them that I had had it over the years, they couldn’t take that.
“First, they claimed that I was a yahoo-yahoo boy. That I refuted instantly. So they arrested me, insisting on taking me to their office.
“Then, somewhere on Acme Road, they pulled over and demanded the sum of N50,000 from me. One of them told me that if they took me to their office, I would be worse off. So, I began to beg them to take the only N5,000 I had on me and let me go but they refused, offering to take me to the nearest ATM where I could withdraw money to top it up.
“That was how they took me to the nearest bank close by where I withdrew additional N15,000 bringing the total to N20,000. When I handed it to them, I begged them that that was all I could afford. They reluctantly accepted that and let me go.”
Some victims of SARS have accused its operatives of being willing tools in the hands of politicians and influential people in the society. They use the policemen to settle scores. A man, Donatus Ikeme, narrated his experience. “When my friend’s sister one day warned me to keep off her brother, I had dismissed the warning. Not long after, what she meant dawned on me. One fateful morning, SARS operatives arrived at my home in Itire, Surulere, Lagos, claiming that I was wanted for conniving with my friend to sell off his sister’s vehicle. It was a rude shock.
“Next, they bundled me into their vehicle and drove to their office in Ikeja where I was locked up for nearly one week.
“For three days, I tasted neither food nor water. They chained my right arm to my left foot. I was in that condition for days. They said until I confessed to the crime, I would remain in that condition and possibly die there. I saw them torture people; I saw them fire at and kill suspects, and they took their bodies away. The experience was horrible,” he alleged.
But not every Nigerian believes that SARS has done any wrong. Some prefer to call allegations against the agency mere fabrication. They warn that rather than disband the unit as some people are pressing, it should be reformed with caution, contending that not doing so would amount to throwing away the baby with the bath water. They believe that if SARS was scrapped as it was being suggested, armed robbery would be on the increase. Other crimes would be on a steady climb and everybody would be in for rougher times.
Leading this segment is the Police Force Public Relations Officer, Mr Jimoh Moshood. The gentleman had in a recent outburst on a national television channel accused the progenitors of the ENDSARS campaign as working for politicians.
“Somebody who had an ulterior motive put up #EndSARS; Nigerians should be mindful because the social media is very porous.
“We traced the hashtag to mischievous politicians that are trying to create problem in the system that SARS is a stumbling block for them to achieve their objective in the election and we are investigating this. The owner of the hashtag is being investigated.
“We know that freedom of expression is the right of every Nigerian and we are taking people up because of that. It is quite unfortunate.
“I’m not mentioning any name but this same Jega Awosanya Segun is the owner of the hastag and we have seen his picture with various crops of politicians and we are investigating that for Nigerians to know the reason why,” he said, insisting that SARS was not a “killing machine,” but created to deal with armed robbers.
In another instance, Mr Moshood was quoted as accusing the ENDSARS campaigners of being armed robbers. “Nigerians should not give in to insinuations from people that just come to the social media and start spreading falsehood. Such people spreading such information may likely be armed robbers themselves.”
Head or tail, the arguments and allegations against SARS operation and operatives have not been lost. They have not fallen on deaf ears either. Neither have the efforts of the progenitors of ENDSARS campaigners and their core supporter being a waste.
At the moment, it was gathered that the Inspector of Police, Ibrahim Abubakar, has directed that SARS nationwide be reorganised. He has also ordered investigations into “all the allegations, complaints and infractions levelled against the personnel of SARS across the country by the IGP X-Squad of the Force.”
And now, the question is, what sort of reform should the police carry out within this unit which has been in the spotlight in recent times? Against this backdrop, some Nigerians have been speaking, among them Prof Ishaq Akintola of the Muslim Rights Concern; former president of Aka Ikenga, Chief Goody Uwazurike, a lawyer and Mr Don Iroham a retired Assistant Inspector General of Police.
For Prof Akintola, the right reform SARS needed now was encouragement and appropriate disciplinary measure.
“I do not subscribe to the ENDSARS idea,” he said to Daily Sun. “If you end SARS operations do you have an alternative agency in place? Let’s not forget easily that insecurity is the biggest challenge in the country at the moment. We have kidnapping, armed robbery, name them. If you end SARS, how do you tackle these challenges?
“I’m a teacher. And now, don’t forget that there are a series of bad teachers out there, some raping, some impregnating their pupils. Do you now say because of that, the schools should be demolished? The answer is no!
“What we should do now is to allow the police to fish out the bad eggs in their ranks. They should up the ante on orderly room trials and punishment of the bad ones.
“Let us encourage them to punish the excesses of their men. And don’t forget that the average man in uniform, whether he is a police operative or a private security guard is autocratic and irrational. These are the excesses that should be curtailed.
“In doing this, we need to take cognizance of the fact that policemen in Nigeria are overworked. They have no equipment; some of them sew their own uniforms and buy their booth and even fuel their operational vehicles. They need compensation; they need manpower.
“We heard that President Buhari has approved the recruitment of additional 30,000 policemen. We just hope that this will be speedily carried out.”
Chief Uwazuruike is of the view that the clamour for reform in the SARS was absolutely in order as the police must respond to change. He maintained that the current ENDSARS campaign was a fallout of many years of police neglect of the people’s call for reform. He listed areas the police must pay attention to in its in-house cleansing.
“The police have been there for years. So, one thing they must embrace now is change. They should know that when anything is first introduced, it might be effective but with time, discontent will set in.
“In the light of this, the police need to pay special attention to the human rights provisions of the constitution. They need to know that in law, you can let nine suspects walk away free rather than to allow one innocent man go to jail.
“The police do incalculable harm by torturing people. That was why Alagbon and Panti in Lagos gained notoriety. They forced people to admit things they didn’t do just to be free of torture.
“SARS initially was a special unit with its own special commanders. But that arrangement seems to be no more. Therefore, if it is not going to be disbanded, it should be managed by well-functional and well-educated officers who should be given very high-level of responsibilities.
“It will be a great idea for top-ranking police officers from the ranks of commissioner, Assistant and Deputy Inspector General to visit them unannounced to bring sanity to their operations.
“And if the unit must be taken seriously, its operatives must be ready to explain their operations to Nigerians at all times.
“What we are seeing today as ENDSARS did not just happen. It has been building up over the years. It is a throw-back to the people’s yearning which the police chose to neglect. It means that the police have not been in touch of the realities on ground – extra judicial torture and killings and all manner of abuses. Therefore, they must sit up to embrace new attitudes and new challenges,” he said.
On his part, Iroham demanded that that not only SARS but the entire police machinery should be reformed while particular attention should be paid to the education of its operatives.
“The whole police machinery needs to be reformed,” he said. It is like a system with many parts that work together. All the parts need to work in unison.
“If you reform SARS and leave all other parts, at the end, fingers will still be pointing at the unit.
“I was involved in developing a training manual for SARS sometime ago. At the end of it all, we agreed that proper education for SARS operatives should be pursued. There should be specific training module for them; it is better to have them trained than to have them kitted. There is no need to have them carrying AK 47 riffles when they know nothing about the fundamental human rights of the people they serve. We agreed that they should have a positive attitude so that people will be happy with them.
“It was our view that they should have a code of conduct. They should be conversant with UN and AU charters on human rights. They should be conversant with the rights of the people as enshrined in the Nigerian constitution: right to life, freedom of association. These are some of the things they should imbibe.”
Mr Iroham did not say if these suggestions were accepted or jettisoned by the police.
However, he said clamouring for SARS to be scrapped might not be the end of everything, warning that criminals might latch onto the movement. He said rather than disband SARS, it should be made to operate according to set rules.