Police Discloses New Unit Taking Over From SARS.

During a recent interview with popular musician, David Adeleke a.k.a. Davido; the Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu has revealed that the training of a new unit to take over from the just disbanded Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) will begin next week.  

He noted that disbanding SARS left a hole in the Police Force that needed to be filled immediately. In reality, instead of the police brutality that the SARS have been branded with, the original plan was for them to combat violent crimes. The new structure will be saddled with taking up this crucial responsibility.

What if there is no CHANGE? What if police brutality continues?

He assured that the new outfit would be properly trained, intelligence-driven, and only act on special orders from the IGP himself. Additionally, that the members will be made up of fresh personnel with fresh orientation and not officers from the scrapped unit.

Vanguard News reports; while noting that the process will be a rough one, he announced that opportunities would be given to the public to participate as well as make inputs to the formation of the new unit. Since this was the first time the Nigerian Police had taken the decision to dissolve SARS, he pleaded for calm as all issues are being resolved.

According to him, “We just disbanded SARS yesterday, so protesters should calm down and give us time to fix the problem. The general public will be part of getting a new outfit.”

What about the cases of brutality; people who have died? What happens to the perpetrators?

Promising to investigate all cases of police brutality, and bring perpetrators to book, the IGP continued,

“The issue of compensation to the families of those affected by SARS would be addressed when investigations are concluded. We want justice to be done and justice will be done.”

Lastly, he stated that officers of the disbanded unit would be re-trained and given other responsibilities in the Force. But will not be re-absorbed into the new unit.  

Overall, like all politicians, this could very well be a ruse to calm protests down. But I hope not. I hope that the Police commit to decisive actions to, truly, put an end to police brutality in Nigeria. Until then, we keep #praying and #protesting #EndPoliceBrutality.

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