The Special Anti-Robbery Squad was a Nigerian Police Force unit created in late 1992. It was part of the Force Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department. SARS was controversial for its links to extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, extortion, torture, framing, blackmail, kidnapping, illegal organ trade, armed robbery and home invasions. Reforms were promised in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019. However it was not until widespread protests in Nigeria and worldwide under the motto \”End SARS\” in 2020, that the unit was disbanded on 11 October 2020.
About Special Anti-Robbery Squad in brief
The Special Anti-Robbery Squad was a Nigerian Police Force unit created in late 1992. It was part of the Force Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department. SARS was controversial for its links to extrajudicial killings, forced disappearances, extortion, torture, framing, blackmail, kidnapping, illegal organ trade, armed robbery, home invasions, rape of men and women, child arrests, the invasion of privacy, and polluting bodies of water by illegally disposing of human remains. Reforms were promised in 2016, 2017, 2018 and 2019. However it was not until widespread protests in Nigeria and worldwide under the motto \”End SARS\” in 2020, that the unit was disbanded on 11 October 2020. The SARS unit was officially commissioned in Lagos in November 1992. In October 2005, a SARS operative killed a bus driver in Obiaruku, Delta State, for failing to pay a bribe. In May 2010, Amnesty International disclosed that it would be suing the Nigerian Police over human rights abuses, stating that SARS operatives in Borokiri, Port Harcourt, had arrested three bicyclists and detained them for over one week while they were beaten every night with the butt of a gun and iron belt. In September 2016, Pulse compiled a report on Nigerian police brutality entitled ‘Meet the Police Unit with a license to kill’. Following several reports of human rights violations, the Inspector General of Police Solomon Arase announced he would split the SARS into two units, an operational unit and an investigations unit.
The unit was created to deal with crimes associated with robbery, motor vehicle theft, kidnapping and cattle rustling, and firearms. In 2009, after several years of operations, the squad grew in number and strength. In 2010, Sahara Reporters published an extensive editorial report detailing how SARS and other units had made a profit of ₦9.9 billion within 18 months. On June 2011, the Nigeria Police Force discovered an attempt by an operative Musa Agbubu to bomb the Force’s headquarters. The operative was removed from their SARS position and arrested on charges of murder. In July 2010, a Federal High Court in Enugu State ordered the then-Inspector General of. Police Ogbonna Okechukwu Onovo to produce a Special anti-robbery Squad officer who had shot dead a 15-year-old boy at his high school. According to the Sars officer, the teen was mistaken for a kidnapper and made a made a bomb from a car. The officer was later arrested and charged with murder. The two guards were not charged with a crime when arrested. In January 1997, the bodies of the guards were placed at a morgue without an explanation for their deaths. In mid-1996, the SAR’s Lagos branch arrested two security guards at their place of work under suspicion of assisting in a robbery. In November 2000, the unit became a national scourge that witch-hunt machinery against Nigerian youth with dreadlocks, piercings, cars, expensive phones and risque means of expression.
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This page is based on the article Special Anti-Robbery Squad published in Wikipedia (as of Jan. 04, 2021) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
