"#ENDSARS” AND THE IGP DIRECTIVE ON RE-ORGANISATION OF SARS – MY EMPIRICAL POSIT


In every Country, State and Community, the people saddled with the responsibilities of piloting and managing of resources both man, material and immovable resources of the Nation can only achieve these with laws and enforcing agencies created by laws for this course. This emanated the need for the Police, Military and other Security agencies established by the laws with defined purposes to ensure the citizenries regard for the laws of the Country. However, without digression from the scope of this Write-up; Nigeria, the Citizenries and her Police Force have always been a subject of debates among security experts, lawyers and scholars specifically in the areas professionalism and operation of the Police Force. One of the departments of the Nigerian Police Force (NPF), the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) has one of its Units called Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) designed solely to tackle the menace of robbery and individuals or group of people unlawfully bearing arms to disturb the peace of the citizens. The SARS particularly is the subject of this discourse in that; there have been a campaign on the Social Media recently by some Nigerians calling for an end to the SARS operation and existence, titled: “#ENDSARS”, for the uncounted allegations of harassment, extra judicial killings, tortures and unethical conducts in the course of discharging its duties. In view of the introduction, the rationales of this write-up are to first analyse the cradle of SARS, its achievement, the purpose, point out some of the reported or alleged misconducts of SARS and also the psychological position that could have made the Inspector General of Police (IGP) to bring forth the issue of “re-organisation” if the allegations had been false, and consequently appraise if it worth decimation.

First, the case of robbery was the threat Nigerians were contending with in 1980s, 90s, and early 2000s; this however called for an expedient solution from the Nigerian Police Force which culminated in the creation of a Special Unit called SARS trained to tackle the menace in the 36 States of the country and FCT. The SARS has been operating for almost Forty (40) Years and has been addressing the issue of armed robbery and criminal cases.

In this regard, without underscoring the achievement of this department, one would agree that it has helped deplete the crime rate in the country and more so, been a threat to the notorious incidents of robbery and other criminal cases even if there are still lapses on the part of our leaders to equip and develop the operation in the country. The SARS beyond that has helped in curbing the menace of robbery and other criminal acts in Nigeria. Many of their successful operations in Nigeria cannot be annotated here as they are enormous for this brief coherent posit since inception. Hence, the purpose for its creation has been averagely achieved and requires further development and in the areas of training and making available the needed facilities to operate with.

The allegation that prompted the “#ENDSARS” campaign propagated through an outcry made by Nigerian Artiste, African China who released a video of how he was harassed, maltreated and the misconduct perpetrated on him by operatives of SARS and this was consequentially media-hijacked and the said campaign goes viral for the National Police Force to decimate SARS department.

Why restructuring now? Inspector General of Police in a statement released through the Force spokesman Mr Moshood Jimoh, orders the Re-organisation of the SARS following a campaign for the scrapping of SARS. Meanwhile, we need to recall that one of the rationales of this write up is to psychologically discover what prompted the need for re-organisation. Before I proceed further, we need to first understand what is organisation from management/administrative perspective and why ‘Re’. Re: The prefix is simply used as a repetition or again of what is done. Organisation to management philosophy is the designing and structuring of factors of production to the achievement of Strategic Goals. The contemporary factors go beyond what we know in Economics. Organisation gives birth to Structure and Design to achieve Organisation Development. However, Organisation Design is the model and method for structuring and developing an existing structure. Organisation Structure on the other hand is the arrangement of task and work process for efficiency. Thus, IGP knows better the definition of Re-organisation and as such not mistakenly mentioned.

The psychological analysis to the delineated conjunct words is simply a technical acceptance to series of outcry and allegations on the poor and unethical conducts of the operatives. Thus deems it expedient to address as it has degenerated into National Issue. Meanwhile this issue ought to have been addressed earlier as many Nigerians have been reporting such cases. Therefore, the case and other reported or pending cases of voiceless Nigerians who could not go through this medium to air the injustice they had suffered from the SARS should be investigated in expedition and perpetrators should be prosecuted. More so, the National Assembly should address the issue to avoid further occurrences. Meanwhile, scrapping would not be the solution rather reformation and re-organisation of the department. The scrapping would depict psychological resurgence of criminality in the country, and the Nigerian Army is too burdened beyond handling such menial issue which is the constitutional responsibility of the Nigerian Police Force.

It is disheartening however to note that, some miscreants have hijacked the campaign and seize the opportunity to cause chaos or controversy in the security sector to enable them continue the disturbances and havoc in the country.


RADICAL FATAI4CHANGE