He added, “We call on President Muhammadu Buhari to prevail on the Police Service Commission and the Inspector General of Police to commence a thorough and realistic review of the entire structure of the Police Force in order to restore its integrity.”
In the report, the Nigerian Archbishop indicated that he had received credible reports and seen online videos showing the atrocities of SARS operatives including acts of extortion and brutality against Nigerians. He added that
Some SARS officials are accused of executing victims in an extrajudicial manner, he said, adding, “It is sad that a good fraction of the very persons who are constitutionally empowered to provide security and ensure peace and order have now turned against the very people they are meant to protect.”
“Unfortunately, we have been witnesses to the seeming inability of our police authorities to put an end to this outright siege on hapless Nigerians,” the 61-year-old Nigerian Prelate bemoaned.
He recalled previous unsuccessful attempts to call for change saying, “There have been no less than four attempts by the topmost hierarchy of the Nigerian Police to call these special units to order without success.”
For Archbishop Adewale, the inability to bring members of the police unit under control gives room for Nigerians to insinuate that “the top echelons are themselves compromised” and that “it would be sad if this is found to be true.”
“The only way of assuaging the anger in the land now is to ensure that the guilty ones are brought to face the law and justice seen to have been done,” he was quoted as saying in the October 10 report.
He added, “It would not be fair to the hardworking and thoroughbred professionals among the officers whose integrity have been put on the line unless a permanent halt is brought to the rot that has been festering in the system over the years.”
“Failure of the leadership of the country to take appropriate action this time is bound to exacerbate the worsening state of insecurity across the country,” the Archbishop said.
Despite the action to disband SARS announced October 11, protests in Africa’s most populous have continued, with protestors expressing their dissatisfaction with the government’s decision to redeploy police officers who were serving under SARS to other police units instead of punishing them.
