Some Lawyers, businessmen and other Nigerians are calling on the government and the police authority to provide world class training for operatives of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) instead of disbanding the Unit as being agitated in some quarters.
The lawyers spoke following recent killings of innocent Nigerians by policemen who are not SARS operatives which was one of the reasons for the call to disband SARS.
Barr. Adoya Amali who is also a security expert and Chief Executive Officer of Concentric Security said “The entire Nigeria Police Force need reform not just SARS. Look at the killing of the football fan in Lagos; that was not done by SARS. The killing of the Civil Defence officer, Jombo in Abuja was not done by SARS. There has been sanity in SARS since the agitation for reform.
“I am for reform of SARS and not for them to disband them. I had an encounter with SARS Lagos command when my mechanic made away with my vehicle but the SARS operatives called me two days after the case was lodged that they have recovered my vehicle and arrested the suspect. I was surprised. They need continuous training and retraining for them to stay within their core mandate which is fighting robbery”.
Barrister Agnegbodo Bartholomew, a Lagos based lawyer said, “I am for SARS reform. SARS reform in the sense that most of the killings ascribed to SARS of recent were not done by SARS operatives. Nigerians mistake all policemen in other formations for SARS. One thing that is glaring is that, there are provisions within the Police Act and our Criminal Code to take care of any policeman that misbehaved and those who take the life of innocent Nigerians. You would notice that since the agitation to scrap SARS began, there has been unprecedented rise in crime. Nigerians get attacked by robbers during traffic hours. Also, the incident of car snatching in Lagos State, breaking of motorists glasses, kidnapping have returned”.
Speaking further, Barr. Bartholomew said, “My own opinion is, will you throw away the bath water and the baby? If there are a few bad eggs within SARS giving SARS a bad name, the police should use internal mechanism to fish them out and carry out a reorientation programme for serving officers. The reorientation to uphold the civil norms in policing should be encouraged. There should be constant retraining on the use of fire arms to avoid the incident of extra judicial killing in the cause of operation. As regard their functions, we cannot shut our eyes to the over bearing functions of men of the SARS”.
On the issue of stopping armed robbery, Barr. Bartholomew said,” The fear of SARS in every environment where there are bad eggs speaks volume to security of lives in that environment, while the normal criminal does not bother themselves with the regular policemen, once they hear that SARS is coming, that apprehension create a sense of security within. Their absence that we have seen in the last few months when they were made to return to their bases has worsened the insecurity of lives. It is not far-fetched that those who one way or the other are beneficiary of the rising crime or have skeleton in their cupboard, are those calling for scraping of SARS”.
A business man, Mr. Raphael said, “We cannot overemphasize the importance of SARS in reducing crime. Government should reform the outfit not scrap it”.
A senior police officer who requested anonymity said, “The recent police killings in Lagos reveal that none of these killings is by SARS operatives but some members of the society attribute all police bad behavior to SARS. SARS operatives are well behaved now and they are doing well. “You will be amazed at the caliber of guns recovered from miscreants, thugs and robbers in our society by SARS operatives. Today, SARS is one of the police outfit with zeal to withstand the heat of violence or criminal activities like robbery, kidnapping and any other hard crime you can think about. One can take Lagos as case study, due to the firm stand of SARS Lagos became a no go area for robbers. It is good to encourage who is doing well instead of condemning them”.
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