By Ebuka Onyekwelu
There is nothing more brazenly scandalous than abuse of power and public trust. But somehow, Nigerians have been able to put up with more than enough outrageous abuses, vandalism of sorts and dehumanization of the highest level. This, to the point that most Nigerians now justify or at least rationalize these incongruities, perhaps those are part of what it takes to be a Nigerian. In public bus, once police stops a bus at the various illegal checkpoints they mount for the sole purpose of collecting money from road users, the passengers echoes “give am money na”, yet they are at a lose why they have to pay so much for such a short distance journey. In the office, it is “find him something to push this”. The message and reality is that with the right money, you can almost always walk through any situation in Nigeria without a scratch. Once you “cooperate”, the kingdom of Nigeria is yours. Regrettably, this is what SARS has exploited to build a massive industry of extortion and crime.
One unfortunate thing about Nigerians is our ability to take every trash thrown at us by government and its agencies and adjust without complaints. The Special Anti Robbery Squad unit of the Nigeria Police Force, as only but a natural born child of a country in perpetual abuse and criminalization of her citizens, has so brazenly operated for years with such unabashed recklessness and impunity, unleashing horrifying terror on innocent citizens. SARS has proven to be a most irresponsible outfit, a terror to innocent citizens, with their self appointed power to decide at will, who may live and who may die, completely at their own discretion. Mostly, young Nigerians have remained victimized in what looks like SARS has power to say who is a criminal, just by mere look at you. SARS activities, as uncouth, terribly shocking as they are, have only continued to take more victims. Stories of young men abducted by SARS but have not been seen years after, abound. Nobody can also explain what happened to the missing victims till date.
In Anambra state, the Awkuzu SARS is notorious for all kinds of abuses and extra-judicial killings. But there is another SARS unit in Neni Anambra state, said to be more dangerous than the Awkuzu SARS. There, stories of something more sinister leave some clue, providing some likely answers to the whereabouts of all the people abducted by SARS in Anambra state but have gone missing till date, inexplicably.
Chuks during the end SARS protest in Awka, the Anambra state capital on Saturday, narrated how his cousin who was abducted by SARS in their village at Agu-Ukwu Nri in Anambra state, while the young boy was going for an errand with his brother, has not been seen till date, years after. “It’s been over three years he was taken by SARS, we went to Awkuzu, we did everything, we have not seen him till date, his mother my aunt must have died partly as a result of that”, Chuks said. This story resonates, not as an isolated case, but a pattern in SARS operations.
Another constant pattern in SARS operations is the demand for ransom and the torture they put innocent people through, to get them confess to what they do not know anything about. Several stories of encounters with SARS operatives do not end without the twin vile of demand for ransom and torture. Most cases, victims narrate that they are openly told to pay or they die. Such blatant abuse and arrogation of the power of life and death, to itself by SARS. This speaks to the simple fact that the outfit has since jettisoned its mandate and has turned self into an oppressive, extortionist enterprise. Whoever is willing to pay, is set free by SARS, notwithstanding. This situation is better imagined than experienced. And so when the Nigeria Police Force PRO; DCP Frank Mba was saying only a few days ago, that if end SARS is a metaphor for reforms in SARS operations, that the Police Force is in agreement with the reforms.
But if it means literally to end SARS, then it will be difficult because of the amount of money spent to train the operatives. Well, if SARS operatives go through such training spoken so highly of and still behave in this manner, what type of training were they given and of what use is the training? We can see that Nigeria has been wasting money on a futile venture and to my mind, SARS should be ended and the money expended on them diverted to more important units of the Police Force. It is a better venture in all estimation.
Therefore the ongoing end SARS campaign must be construed as a demand to end an era. An era of impunity, an era where lives of innocent citizens do not matter and an era of abuse of power; where people who are armed in public trust are trapped in a circle of abuse and overridden by their own lost for power. With this in mind, the assumption that a reform is enough to resolve the SARS impunity is, again, to my mind, untrue, simply because you cannot reform a whole bad bunch. No form of reform is possibly sufficient to put SARS in a position where it can serve the public with integrity. Being what it is; an assemblage of the most indiscipline rascals, those at the very depths of the pit of evil in the Nigeria Police Force, SARS is beyond redemption by mere reforms.
What is on test in the ongoing campaign to end SARS is the will of young Nigerians to take a stand and make legitimate demands on how the Nigerian system must respond to the needs of the people, according to the demands and choices of the people of Nigeria. End SARS is metaphor for end impunity, abuse of power and dehumanization of citizens. As the campaign gains even more momentum and worldwide publicity, it is left to be seen how the Nigerian government will respond in the interest of public outcry, rise to the occasion and address recurrent, if not traditional SARS vandalism of innocent citizens and other brazen acts of violations of all sorts. In the mean time, Nigerian citizens should continue to make difficult legitimate demands as that is the only way to secure any meaningful future for the people of Nigeria.
Now that the government has responded and disbanded SARS, it is win for the people. By and large, how well this demand and collieries progresses, will be mainly determined by the resilience of the Nigerian people in making this demand. The people want real change not a mere promise or verbose assurances from the leadership class; a real change that will impact on their everyday life, and how they are seen and treated by agents of government. Beyond all that have been said, end SARS campaign is a demand by the Nigerian people for a higher stake in public management and governance process. It is a public action by the people of Nigeria to take back their country from reckless marauding plunderers.
He is a Technical Assistant to Governor Willie Obiano’s Special Adviser on Legislative Matters, whoonce was a Special Adviser to a former Deputy Speaker of Anambra State House of Assembly. Ebuka is a second class upper division graduate of Political Science from University of Calabar, Calabar Nigeria and holds a Masters Degree in Political Science with specialization in Government and Development Studies, from Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka Nigeria
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