Why Buhari must not scrap SARS — Senate President
Senate President Ahmad Lawan has urged the Muhammadu Buhari administration to reject popular calls for disbanding the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS).
Anti-police protests have broken out online and on the streets against the allegedly murderous activities of the police unit.
Although the government announced another round of bans to reform SARS, Nigerians say the unit is “irredeemable” and so should be totally disbanded.
But Lawan has other ideas.
“I think that this is the situation that should be properly investigated,” the Senate President said during plenary on Wednesday as lawmakers deliberated a motion on the recent extrajudicial killings carried out by SARS and other police units.
“Those in involved in recent incident should be arrested and prosecuted. The law should take its due course. This is not acceptable. Nigerians need to know what happened by those who have killed Nigerians.
“There are good people and bad people in SARS.
“Scrapping of agencies when you have mistakes may not be the best position. Rule of law should be put in place.
“If you scrap SARS, you lose the chance of getting those doing well to continue to do well,” he said.
The Senate has mandated its committee on Judiciary, Human Rights and Legal Matters to investigate human right abuses by Nigerian security agencies.
