By: Ola Pat
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| Nigeria Police Complain Channels |
About 2 weeks ago, the social media was aflame with the outcry of injustices against the operative Special Anti-Robbery Squad, SARS. The cry for justices started from the social media and like a wide fire spread to other media as more victims recounted their ordeal in the hands of the operatives at different times and places. Though, the Police authority later grudgingly takes some steps to appease those calling for the heads of SARS by fishing out about 31 members as sacrificial lambs, the police initial reaction through the Police Public Relation office was to try to blackmail those calling for the end #endsars of the outfit tagging them robbers. But instead more people including celebrities add more by sharing their experience too. With the online campaign and street protests in some cities in Nigeria, it was obvious that the Police Tactical Squad called SARS has been corrupt absolutely by the absolute powers it corned from the failure of the Police to curb crime.
The result of these outcries and description of the exploitation of the public by SARS has yielded a partial victory as the police authority has provided communication channels to report the atrocity committed by the squad members. Though, time has blurred out the purpose and origin of the Squad. Commune Magazine takes you on a memory lane. SARS was conceived as a police tactical squad trained to combat Armed Robbers at lease that was the initial concept of setting up the squad in Lagos, until recently that the squad start hunting for fraudsters, 419ers and anything and everything that will surrender illegitimate cash to the squad team members.
SARS was created by Mr. Mike Okiro in 1991 in response to the incessant robbery and constant assault on policemen at roadblocks in and around Lagos. As at that time, there is a notorious armed robber that scares the daylight out of every police officer in Lagos by the name of Shina Rambo. His modus operandi was to snatch exotic cars and according to reports move them in a long convey into Benin republic. But the most daring part of this daredevil operation is a shoot at sight of anything in police uniform. Thus, the situation at that is to develop a strategy that will not only conceal the police response team but that can also guaranty an element of surprise. This is the genesis of SARS.
According to Mr. Okiro in a recent interview in Daily Trust “The idea was that they would be in mufti, and armed, simply for the very important element of surprise. They would take cover, and communicating with walkie-talkies, hit the armed robbers. They did that two or three times, and the robbery attacks went down, drastically, and at a point stopped altogether." The effective containment of the activities of armed robbers then prompted other police divisions across the country to fashion out a similar squad with the same name leading to the gradual erosion of the goals and purpose of the squad.
The success of the squad operation relies heavily on blending in with the populace by being in or wearing mufti in other to invade detection by the robbers until it is too late to react appropriately. As earlier pointed out, the nightmare of the car owners, Shina Rambo abhorred the sight of police uniform, so by wearing mufti SARS unit are able to jump on him and his gang before they are noticed. In the said interview Mr. Okiro insisted that SARS duty as constitute “is not to investigate, but to hit, it’s a Special Anti-Robbery Squad, not an investigative one”.
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