The generality of Nigerians can no longer stomach their outlawry. Young men with dreadlocks, ripped jeans, tattoos, flashy cars or expensive gadgets between the ages of 17 and 30 are frequently targeted by SARS, set up to fight banditry. Experts believe these issues concerning police brutality need real reform. The reform must enhance professionalism, effectiveness, efficiency and welfare, and must promote discipline and accountability in the Police Force.
Current security challenges that confront the country, as well as the persistently low human rights compliance rankings that the Nigerian Police has received highlight the need for reforms that address capacity deficits and transform the agency into a modern crime-fighting, law-abiding, responsive and accountable institution.
The duty of the Nigerian Police Force, as set out in the Nigerian Police Act 2004, is to secure lives and properties, prevent, detect crime, and apprehend offenders. The organised use of torture, extralegal execution of Nigerians as the tactics of policing in Nigeria in spite of all the inherent and attendant breaches of the constitutionally protected freedoms of the citizens.
Nigerian government have been part of the relevant international treaties especially on human rights which include: the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, 1948, International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) 1966, International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) 1966, International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, the International Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989 and the United Nations Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel among others.
However, a controversial unit of the Nigeria Police Force, Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), is one that has persisted for longer than tolerable as the penchant of officials to indiscriminately stop and search youths, suspect everyone with a phone to be an Internet fraudster, popularly called “Yahoo boy”. Often, the men went off course to torment innocent Nigerians. The body have reduced themselves to extortionists of suspected cyber criminals which is a negation of the raison d’etre for setting them up in the first place.
Police brutality and excesses have become a worrisome concern in Nigeria as many civil societies, organizations and stakeholders are calling for institutional reforms within the police system. The silent and extrajudicial killings by SARS is no longer a secret.
International organisations such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have long accused Nigerian police of extortion, physical attacks and other abuses, charges they deny. In a 2020 report titled “Time to End Impunity,” Amnesty International documented at least 82 cases of torture, ill-treatment and extra-judicial execution by SARS between January 2017 and May 2020.
Everything about #SARS in one minute; pic.twitter.com/Ba07NzQ3iT
— Amnesty International Nigeria (@AmnestyNigeria) October 9, 2020
Amnesty International’s investigation also revealed a disturbing pattern of abuse of detainees in SARS custody despite the 2017 Anti-Torture Act. In addition, the Nigerian Constitution prohibits torture and degrading treatment in Section 34 (1). In many cases, Amnesty International says it bore witness to the scars, bruises, and dried blood on victims’ bodies. Many of them were subjected to beatings with sticks and machetes and denied medical care.
—SARS will be reformed; 2015
—SARS will be reformed; 2017
—FSARS will be disbanded; 2018
—SARS will be restructured; 2019
—SARS banned from patrols; 2020#EndSarsNow #EndSARSBrutality pic.twitter.com/7fRaSVPJOA— Amnesty International Nigeria (@AmnestyNigeria) October 5, 2020
The effectiveness of any law is measured by the compliance of the state and its actors in it and their readiness to apply the law when it is necessary, Amnesty International report noted.
As demands for accountability became stronger, the #EndSARS campaign was birthed. It was borne out of a frustrating dissatisfaction with the excesses and gross human rights violations that SARS had become infamous for. The demand to end the unit became more and more prominent in 2017 following more cases of people sharing traumatic stories.
In recent times, there has been a nationwide campaign, especially on social media for the proscription of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) because of their excesses.
For a while now Nigerians, especially the youth have lived in constant fear of not just criminals, but of the security forces, particularly the police and SARS that swore to protect them.
Here is a list of of people who have died at the hands of the Nigerian Police. #Thread pic.twitter.com/QmOrUjU84V
— Lists NG (@ListsNG) October 5, 2020
Mr. Segun Awosanya, a lead campaigner in the citizen-led #EndSARS initiative and one of the major voices demanding the scrapping of the notorious anti-robbery squad, said “Most of the policing system we have across the continent is the system that was put in place during colonialism,” said rights advocate Segun Awosanya.
No Signal yet to relevant units on new protocol from all indications. #EndImpunity #ReformPoliceNG https://t.co/vFBHWeMVIx
— SEGA L'éveilleur®?? (@segalink) October 5, 2020
The Nigeria Police is currently organized under the 1943 Police Act and Regulations, which came into force before Nigeria’s independence.
Nigerian national police needs reform, not just the SARS unit. There have been attempts to reform the police force in the last 10 years, he said, but “every attempt to execute or implement police reform, restructuring, re-equipping the Nigerian police always fails due to lack of political will of the government and people.”
Security expert’s notes that police budgets as a percentage of National budget has been declining since 2015 while actual releases of Capex and Overheads have been less than budgeted. The current funding and control mechanism is clearly suboptimal and the outcome is growing insecurity. An immediate reset of Police organizational and funding framework will bring lasting change and reduce the need for special forces. While, Transparency International indicates that the 29 states spent 241b Naira on securing votes = 70% of the annual Police Budget. Current Police funding and organization construct should be reviewed.
The rule of law ought to reign supreme over arbitrary and capricious exercise of police power. The fundamental rights of Nigerian citizens including the constitutional rights of criminal suspects, detainees and even criminal convicts are clearly stipulated in our 1999 Constitution. Every citizen is presumed innocent until proved guilty by a court of law of competent jurisdiction. Suspicion, no matter how probable or grounded, cannot secure a criminal conviction. A police officer or any law enforcement agents, in a bid to detect crime or apprehend an offender, may stop any citizen for a search or questioning, but on the condition that he first identifies himself as a police officer by stating his names, police station and the grounds for the questioning or the search.
If the police man fails to sufficiently identify himself as aforesaid, then the citizen is not obliged to submit himself for a search or questioning. Any person who is arrested or detained shall have the right to remain silent or avoid answering any question from the police until after consultation with his legal practitioner of his own choice. Also any person who is arrested or detained shall be informed in writing within 24 hours in the language in which he understands of the facts and grounds for his arrests or detention. And where a person has been arrested either for the purpose of charging him to court or upon reasonable commission of an offence, such a person must be charged to court within a reasonable time not exceeding 48 hours failure for which he should be granted bail pending appeal.
While some of the police do seem to feel the pressure and torture to extract a confession so that they can close a case. What we see is that sometimes, a person will go to the station to report a crime, and instead the police will suddenly turn them into a suspect. Intelligence gathering drives the operation of the security agency of most advance countries. Police in many cases lack the training and resources to do their job properly. There is a need for more forensic capacity to analyze fingerprints in order to do a proper investigation, report noted.
In 2018, the then Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo, ordered an immediate review of the operations of the unit. The government later sets up a presidential panel to look into reforming rather than scrapping the anti-robbery unit. As part of the recommendations, capacity building on the efficiency of rule of law and human rights laws was suggested as a viable step to reducing issues surrounding SARS.
IGP BANS FSARS, OTHER POLICE TACTICAL SQUADS FROM ROUTINE PATROLS
– As Police Arrest 2 FSARS Operatives, 1 Civilian Accomplice in Lagos State
The Inspector-General of Police, IGP M.A Adamu, NPM, mni has banned the personnel of the Federal Special Anti-Robbery Squad (FSARS) and
— Nigeria Police Force (@PoliceNG) October 4, 2020
The Nigerian Inspector-General of Police, M.A Adamu, has banned the Federal Special Anti-Robbery Squad (FSARS) and other Tactical Squads of the Force including the Special Tactical Squad (STS), Intelligence Response Team (IRT), Anti-Cultism Squad operating at the Federal, Zonal and Command levels, from carrying out routine patrols and other conventional low-risk duties stop and search duties, checkpoints, mounting of roadblocks, traffic checks, etc with immediate effect.
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