Human Rights activist, Femi Falana (SAN) has said that Nigeria cannot
afford to scrap the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) but needs to
completely overhaul it. According to Falana, SARS is a legacy of the
military government and a partially illegal squad which still operates
like they are in a military regime.
He, therefore, stressed the need for armed troops
among SARS operatives to be removed and the policemen among them
re-orientated.
In a recent interview on Channels, Falana said:
“You
must remove the soldiers in SARS and retrain the police among them. You
re-orientate them because they still behave as if they are under
military dictatorship because SARS is a legacy of military dictatorship.
As it is constituted, it is partly illegal under a civilian and
democratic dispensation. Under the constitution, the duty of maintaining
internal security, law, and order in Nigeria is vested exclusively in
the police.
“SARS is constituted by armed troops, soldiers and
police personnel all over the country. Every state government maintains
the SARS in the country and these state governments have not bothered to
find out what is this body doing in terms of law enforcement, combating
armed robbery and performance in terms of respecting the rights of the
Nigerian people.
“Stressing the need for SARS to be totally
overhauled as against calls by some concerned citizens for the squad to
be scrapped. “The Nigerian new colonial state cannot afford to scrap
SARS, it is not possible. We have an increasing wave of armed robbery,
kidnapping terrorism and other serious violent crimes which the regular
police personnel have not been trained to curb or combat, therefore we
are going to have SARS but it has to be totally overhauled.”
Falana
commended the efforts of Nigerians protesting against SARS saying any
demonstration by Nigerian against perceived injustice should be
encouraged but the protesters must also be made to appreciate that the
law has taken care of all their concerns and fears.
“What we are therefore required to do is to ensure that the laws are
enforced which has made it illegal to detain a Nigerian without taking
him to the court in a place like Lagos or in the rural areas beyond
48hours.”
