A pro-democracy group, Citizens Action for Good Governance, has said that the newly formed Special Weapons And Tactics, SWAT, unit of the Nigeria Police Force is a better and well-organized version of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, SARS.
Recall that on October 11, the Inspector-General of Police, Muhammad Adamu, had announced the disbandment of the notorious, SARS, following protests over the unit’s widespread brutality against Nigerians.
Two days after the disbandment, the IGP announced SWAT as a replacement for the disbanded SARS.
Briefing newsmen on Wednesday in Abuja, the group’s National Coordinator, Nazir Galadanchi, denied claim in some quarters the personnel of the newly formed SWAT are an offshoot of the disbanded police unit.
He explained that the SWAT team comprises of experienced officers who are going to be given good training and orientation to tackle incidences of fraud, armed robbery and other criminalities across the country.
He added that the team would be endowed with state-of-the-art technological equipment, drones, and body-worn cameras, facial recognition software and artificial intelligence to ease their operations.
The group further commended the IGP for heeding to their call on the need to be subjecting police officers to psychological and medical examinations and enhanced training for the officers.
On the seeming unending #EndSARS protests across the country, Mr Galadanchi alleged that the protest had been hijacked by hoodlums who are being sponsored by some political enemies of the present administration.
Mr Galadanchi said: “We want to unequivocally state at this juncture that the dimension the protesters have assumed is really becoming worrisome because we see that the protests have been hijacked and other action we seemly describe as unbecoming and a threat to national security.
“Protesters are being sponsored by some political enemies; from our intelligence gathered there are politicians who have taken advantage of the protest to sponsor violence across the country in order to create an atmosphere of chaos and uprising in order to overheat the polity and make the country ungovernable so they can score cheap political point that the government lacks the capacity to keep the country peacefully.”
The group, therefore, called on the Federal Government to ban all street protests, saying that if this is not done what the country would witness in the coming days will not be palatable.
“We call on Nigerians to see reasons and rise up to stop the protesters because their demand has been met by dissolving the F-SARS, and the other 5 demands are all met by the police authority on the orders of President Muhammadu Buhari,” the group added.
