The Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Hakeem Odumosu, has assured protesters and residents that all men of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) have been disarmed and their offices shut down in the state since the disbandment.
The CP said this following the Tuesday protest in Ikeja by a group of lawyers who called for the removal of the Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu.
The CP said, “As to the directive of the Inspector-General of Police for disbandment (of SARS), if you come here now you will see them (SARS officers) in the regular police uniform.
“They’ve been disbanded, all their arms have been collected; the cases they were handling and the suspects have been transferred to the State CID, Panti for continuation of investigation.”
According to the police boss, he is doing all in compliance with the IG’s directive. “You should understand that in Lagos, we have many police formations; we have, for example, the Special Fraud Unit, traditionally, they are not to carry arms, they are in mufti; equally, we have the Force CID personnel in Alagbon, they are not carrying arms and they are not to be in uniform, all these are specialised arms of the police.”
“The one that the IG has disbanded now has been disbanded from that day. If you go to their offices now in Surulere, Gbagada, they are under lock and key; we only posted policemen there now to guard the places. They are no more functioning.”
While commending the protesting lawyers from the Association of Lawyers in Nigeria led by a human rights lawyer, Inibehe Effiong, the CP said that no single participant in the #EndSARS protest has been killed by the police since the protest started last week.
Odumosu, however, cleared the air that the man, who died from a stray bullet at Surulere on Monday, was not a protester but a driver, who came out of his car to check the cause of the gridlock.
Odumosu added that police officers seen in a viral video harassing a female protester had been arrested and put in the cell.
As Lagos persists in massive #EndSARS and police brutality protest, other states and cities like Kaduna, Abuja, Benin City, Oshogbo, Ibadan, Ondo, Owerri, Ile-Ife, Ibadan, Ogbomosho, Shagamu, Akure, Uyo, Ebonyi, Ilorin, Port-Harcourt, Ado Ekiti, Ughelli, Abia, Washington, Enugu, Jos, Azikoro, Abeokuta, Berlin, Toronto, New York, Geneva, London, Houston, Paris, Dublin and Ghana have followed suit.
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