An alleged shooting of an individual at Yaba Lagos seems to have triggered the recent campaign to scrap SARS. Social media platforms such as: facebook, twitter, instagram etc have come to be formidable tools for calling attention to the ills in the society. It all started with just a # to end SARS, before a twinkle of an eye, like a wild fire, it was all over the places, #ENDSARS. The news was awash with stories, both real and imaginary, of maltreatment suffered by law abiding citizens in the hands of SARS officials. Special Anti- Robbery Squad became Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, a viral disease that needs to be urgently eradicated.
Here is the truth, many who do not even know what the acronym SARS stands for rewetted #ENDSARS. Some who are desperate to “amass” likes on their post cooked stories and put up, while hungry bloggers who are desperate for traffic published unverified stories of SARS maltreatment of law-abiding citizens. Some artiste and politician lent their voices to the campaign, soon, it was reported that the police IG has bowed to pressure and has ordered that the SARS unit be overhauled and the allegation leveled against its officials investigated. In some quarters, some concluded that by this statement, the unit has been scrapped, while others applauded the police chief for listening to the voice of the public, still others were of the opinion that the police IG had not done enough. In some part of the countries, protests were staged to drive home the demand to end SARS. We also saw a counter protest demanding that the unit be refurbished and not scraped.
By way of information, SARS is a section of the Criminal Investigation Department of the Nigeria Police Force, NPF. Other sections of the CID include: Anti-Fraud Section, The Central Criminal Registry (CCR), Special Fraud Unit (SFU), Special Fraud Unit (SFU) etc. It is a common knowledge that the Nigeria Police Force itself is a stench, to put it mildly. It is therefore surprising that we are surprised that a section of the NPF is oozing with extra-judicial killings and brutality. Calling for the scrapping of SARS, however, would amount to cutting one’s nose to spite one’s face. Saying or implying that all SARS operatives are bad is an uneducated generalization. Even among apostles selected by Jesus, after an all-night prayer to God, there was still a bad egg, Uncle Judas. Let us not go about the itch on our skin in a way that we cause ourselves injury. Those who have published fiction as a reality of the experience they had with SARS, to curry sympathy, una wehdone! Those who added pepper , salt and curry to their story, I salute una. Those who do not know about the activities of SARS but kept on re tweeting any tweet on #ENDSARS, see una life. For those bad eggs in the SARS unit, whose actions has brought ostracism on the entire unit, the finger that was dipped into oil that has now affected other fingers, may justice be served onto them!
Justice NO
© 2017