After months of social media pressure from
Nigerians for the Special Anti-Robbery Squad
(SARS) of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) to be
scrapped, the federal government has ordered an
'overhaul'.
For months, Nigerians raised alarm over a string of
misconducts carried out by officers of the unit ranging
from harassment, extortion, assault to extra-judicial
killings.
On Tuesday, August 14, 2018, Acting President, Yemi
Osinbajo , directed the Inspector-General of Police,
Ibrahim Idris , to "overhaul the management and activities"
of the notorious Police unit
While many Nigerians jubilated over what is perceived to
be an end of the unit, many expressed confusion with
what the 'overhaul' meant exactly .
Later on Tuesday, the Force Public Relations Officer,
Jimoh Moshood , released a statement where he detailed
the steps the Force has taken to heed Osinbajo's
'overhaul' directive.
Here's a list of the new changes announced by the Police:
1. The unit will now be known as Federal Special Anti-
Robbery Squad (FSARS) . "All SARS teams nationwide
have been collapsed under FSARS," read the statement.
2. A new Commissioner of Police has been appointed as
the overall head of FSARS nationwide. The Commissioner
of Police (FSARS) is answerable to the Inspector General
of Police through the Deputy Inspector General of Police,
Department of Operations.
3. The FSARS, previously under the Force Criminal
Intelligence and Investigations Department (FCIID), is
henceforth to operate under the Department of Operations,
Force Headquarters Abuja.
4. As directed by Osinbajo, the FSARS will be intelligence-
driven and will be restricted to the prevention and
detection of armed robbery, kidnapping and the
apprehension of offenders linked to the stated offences
only.
5. New FSARS Commanders will be appointed across the
country and operate in the State and Zonal Commands
under the Commissioner of Police (F-SARS) at the Force
Headquarters, Abuja. A Federal SARS Commander of a
Rank of Chief Superintendent of Police (CSP) but not
below Superintendent of Police (SP) will be in charge of
FSARS in State and Zonal Commands across the Country.
6. There will be Human Rights Desk Officers for FSARS in
every State to take complaints from the public and forward
same to Force Headquarters, the officer will be
answerable to the Commissioner of Police (FSARS) at the
Force Headquarters and not Commander FSARS in the
States.
7. Medical/psychological evaluation of all FSARS
personnel will be carried out immediately.
8. Redesigning of new uniform with identity name tags for
all FSARS personnel throughout the country will be done
immediately.
9. FSARS personnel will not perform Stop and Search
duties except on distress call to respond to armed robbery
and kidnapping offences only.
Bonus fact
When the earlier calls for the scrapping of the unit peaked
in December 2017, IGP Idris ordered the reorganisation of
SARS' operational roles and activities .
Under the reviewed arrangement, many of the measures
that were announced last year were also announced again
in Tuesday's statement like they were new measures
being put in place.
The only new directives that were not explicitly
announced in December but on Tuesday are numbers 4, 7,
8 and 9 on this list.
Read December 2017's 'reorganisation' directive
No comments:
Post a Comment