PRESIDENT Muhammadu Buhari seems to have yielded to the demands of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), as he has ordered the Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu, to deal with personnel involved in misconduct.
The PDP had in a statement issued by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, demanded that the IGP, should profile, arrest and prosecute members of the disbanded Federal Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) who were involved in extra-judicial killings, unlawful arrests, among other offences.
“Without mincing words, the PDP insists that no indicted officer should be reassigned and allowed to go unpunished after such heinous crime against the Nigerian people.
“Those who killed, maimed, dehumanized and foisted a reign of terror on innocent Nigerians must be made to answer for their devilish actions.
“Anything short of this will amount to granting official cover to felonious elements and tacit encouragement of further perpetuation of such crimes against Nigerians.
“Furthermore, our party and indeed well-meaning Nigerians across the board are miffed by moves by the leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to use a certain impostor as the spokesperson in the social media to attempt to trivialize, politicize and detract from the essence of the public protest against the excesses of the disbanded police outfit.
“Nigerians were shocked when a particular agent of the APC, in a tweet on Sunday, made false and diversionary allusions to the creation of SARS in a bid to divert attention apparently because of APC’s complicity in the atrocities being protested against by Nigerians.
“Whereas SARS was created in 1992, far before the coming to power of the PDP, it had turned monstrous within five years of the command of APC administration, under which our nation has witnessed horrific cases of arbitrary and extra-judicial killings, illegal arrests, arbitrary detention, torture and reported disappearances as also detailed in the reports by the United States Department of State, Amnesty International (AI) and Transparency International (TI).
“The police system became monstrous when the APC administration started using operatives to hound and clamp down on opposition members and dissenting voices; violently attacking protesters as well as perpetrating violence to rig elections, during which they were deployed to shoot and kill innocent Nigerians and walk away with their crimes.
“Nigerians can recall how, the Buhari Presidency, during the build-up of the 2019 general elections, ordered the extrajudicial shooting of suspected electoral offenders, an order that was widely condemned by our party and other well-meaning Nigerians.
“The APC should therefore hide its face in shame for breeding such monstrous situation instead of using an impostor to go on the social media to shamelessly attempt to politicize the demand by Nigerians to clean up the system,” PDP said.
Buhari on Monday, stated that the disbanding of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) is the first step to extensive police reforms by his administration and directed that all those responsible for the misconduct or wrongful acts be brought to justice.
The president who spoke at the presidential villa, Abuja at the launch of the Presidential Youth Empowerment Scheme (P-YES), aimed at creating 774,000 jobs across the Local Government Areas (LGAs) in the country, said, ”I will like to use this opportunity to say a word on the recent genuine concerns and agitations by Nigerians about the excessive use of force and in some cases extra-judicial killings and wrongful conduct of the men of the Nigerian Police Force.
”The disbanding of SARS is only the first step in our commitment to extensive police reforms in order to ensure that the primary duty of the police and other law enforcement agencies remains the protection of lives and livelihood of our people.
”We will also ensure that all those responsible for the misconduct or wrongful acts are brought to justice.
”We deeply regret the loss of life of the young man in Oyo State during the recent demonstrations.
”I have directed that the circumstances of his death should be thoroughly investigated.
”Meanwhile, it is important to recognise that the vast majority of men and women of the police force are hardworking and diligent in performing their duties.
”The few bad eggs should not be allowed to tarnish the image and reputation of the force.”
