‘Enough is enough’: Nigerians demand SARS police unit scrapped

Abuja, Nigeria – When Osas Osaretin left his home in Abuja in June last year to buy groceries, he could not have imagined the ordeal that would follow. As he drove towards Wuse, a busy market in the Nigerian capital, the 21-year-old was flagged down by three operatives of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) for what he thought was a routine check of his vehicle documents. The gun-wielding police officers ordered him to step out of his car and hand in his mobile telephone for a search. “They didn’t even allow me to park the car properly and started shouting at me to bring my phone so they can check my messages and call log,” Osaretin recalled. “Initially, I resisted and tried to explain to them that I did no wrong and questioned why they want to look at my phone contacts,” he told Al Jazeera. “One of the officers behind me slapped me so hard and forcefully collected the phone. They requested for the phone pin at gunpoint and began to read my messages.” Osaretin said the SARS officers took him in and accused him of advance-fee fraud against him because of some WhatsApp messages he had exchanged with a friend who lived abroad. Osaretin’s parents had to pay 300,000 naira ($783) before he was released after four days in detention. “I’m lucky I am alive because some youths that were taken in by SARS never made it out alive,” he said. Policemen hold hands to barricade protesters to prevent people gaining entry at a government house during the continuing demonstrations to call for the scrapping of the controversial police unit at Ikeja [Pius Utomi Ekpei/AFP]Osaretin’s case is not an isolated one. For years now, Nigerians have accused the notorious police unit of harassment, unlawful arrests, torture and even killings. Anger mounted this week after a video showing the alleged killing of a man by an officer in the southern Delta state was widely shared online. Police denied the video was real, but protesters across Nigeria took to the streets for several days to demand an end to police brutality. One police officer and one protester were reportedly killed during a demonstration against alleged police brutality on Thursday in Ughelli, Delta state. “The Force will no longer tolerate any attack on its personnel or any member of the law enforcement community by any individual or group protesting under any guise,” police quoted Nigeria’s inspector general of police (IGP) as saying in a series of Twitter post on Friday. “The IGP notes that protests by citizens remain a legitimate means for airing their concerns and views. It must, however, be carried out with all sense of responsibility and within the confines of the law,” Mohammed Adamu said. style="width: 100%; height: 100%; position: absolute; top: 0; bottom: 0; right: 0; left: 0;">