EndSARS: Over 30 SARS operatives arrested, moved to Abuja

At least over 30 operatives of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), had been arrested and moved to Force Headquarters, on the orders of the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Ibrahim Idris.
The men were said to have been arrested following petitions written against them and allegations. Idris has ordered his top ranking officers, including commissioners of police in different states to begin to probe past and present activities of SARS personnel.
The probe, which would affect all police formations across Nigeria, had already witnessed the arrest of over 30 operatives. These operatives are alleged to have been arrested based on allegations and petitions from different aggrieved Nigerians.
It was further alleged that Idris had directed commissioners of police to do everything possible to keep an eye on the activities of SARS operatives in their different jurisdictions, even as he continued with his plans to re-organise the unit.
The arrest of the operatives followed demand by Nigerians to scrap SARS unit based on allegations of human rights abuses and violations.
The demand had been followed by a nationwide peaceful protest on Monday, further calling for the scrapping of SARS.
Idris, who refused to take the demands and protests with levity, was said to have handpicked and instructed top ranking police officers to look into the allegations and petitions against SARS across the federation, which keep growing every day.
As of yesterday, at least over 30 SARS were alleged to have arrested in different police commands and whisked to Force Headquarters for debriefing.
For years now, SARS operatives had been often accused of brutality, killings, rape, stealing, robbery, extortions, among other crimes.
The situations of Nigerians versus SARS operatives came to a head when they focused their attention on young folks in the country, carrying out arbitrarily arrests. Some of these youths were arrested on allegations of being cyber fraudsters, having tattoos on their bodies, sporting dreadlocks and sometimes for using expensive phones.
They would be arrested and extorted. The allegation that became regular, was of SARS men, marching suspected cybercrime fraudsters to Automated Teller Machine (ATM) point, where they forced them to withdraw money from their accounts at gunpoint.
Although, it was gathered that the greatest number of SARS arrested by IGP team are mostly from Lagos State Police Command, but a SARS operative said it was not true.
He said: “When did such an arrest take place? I was in office yesterday and today and I didn’t hear any of my colleagues being arrested. No member of SARS personnel was arrested in Lagos State Police Command. The thing is that we were told that SARS might be re-organized, but till date, we have not received any signal to that effect. We don’t have any information that IGP or anybody will probe us for.”
The Force Public Relations Officer (FPRO), Mr Jimoh Moshood, confirming the arrest, disclosed that the IGP’s X-Squad was has commenced full scale investigations into different petitions and allegations raised against SARS operatives across the nation. This was even as he refused to state the number of SARS operatives presently detained.
His words: “The number of those arrested could be more than 30 or less than 30. We have petitions on different allegations, which I can’t mention, but rape is not part of it! All complaints and grievances are being investigated. In fact, the arrested policemen are presently being investigated. They may have to go through Orderly Room Trial.”

The New Telegraph, on Monday, exclusively reported that a 30-year-old man, Okunola Adebayo, whose mother was killed by SARS in Lagos, took part in calling for the scrapping of SARS. 

Adebayo said his mother was frying yam cake (Ojojo) when the stray bullets from policemen chasing suspected internet fraudsters hit her in the chest and died on the spot. He said: “Since the death of my mother, we have been living from hand to mouth because she was the one fending for us since our father died.”

Adebayo said he decided to join the protest to tell the world about the atrocities of men of SARS in Lagos and other parts of the country. He said: “What annoyed me most was that when the incident happened, the Commissioner of Police did not bother to come and condole with us and the policemen that killed my mother are moving freely in the society. “I came out to join the protest to lend my voice to the cries of pains, which SARS men have caused most families in the country.

During the protests organised across the country, demonstrators demanded the scrapping of the special unit. The protests were the culmination of calls for the scrapping of SARS, which started some days ago on the social media as #EndSARS.

The protests took a dramatic turn as another group, said to be sponsored by the police, protested in support of the retention of SARS.

The Convener of #End- SARS group in Abuja, Segun Awosanya, said that the over 200,000 complaints of impunity, extra-judicial killings, extortion and intimidation against SARS were too serious to be ignored or treated with levity. According to him, in the last few weeks, Nigerians have been crying out their ordeal in the hands of SARS operatives and that a responsible government cannot afford to ignore the allegations coming from distressed citizens.