Usman Alkali Baba, acting inspector-general of police, has said the disbandment of Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) has created a vacuum in Nigeria’s Police effort at fighting insecurity.
Baba said this at the weekly Ministerial briefing, organized by Presidential Communications Team at the Presidential Villa in Abuja.
He also disclosed that the morale of the personnel of the force had remained dampened aftermath of the #EndSARS protest and with the recent attacks in the Southeast.
The acting inspector-general of police expressed that Special Weapons and Tactics Squad (SWAT) established to replace SARS has not yet commenced operations.
He said the vacuum created by SARS has made it difficult to tackle most of the violent crimes in the country.
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Baba pointed out that regular policemen and women have not been able to immediately slot into the vacuum created by SARS disbandment, though efforts are ongoing to train them for the new role.
The acting IGP expressed;
The security situation of the country has been significantly stabilise from time to time but we think if it is stabilising then are isolated insurgency coming from these zones in terms of attacks on police facilities and police personnel, even all law enforcement agencies including the military.
Therefore, we decided to, one, rejig the morale of our personnel, which has been a little bit dampened since the #EndSARS thing went.
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He noted;
With the proscription of SARS and establishment of SWAT, which has not been able to take off fully. We had a vacuum in tackling most of the violent crimes from our position of strength.
In order to mitigate the vacuum, Baba speaking on planned recruitment of 10,000 new police personnel, said the process has reached 70 percent and that the exercise is in compliance with the federal character principle.
He further expressed that that the police has recorded successes against secessionists and criminals in the southeast but they can not be prosecuted and brought to justice because of the ongoing strike by judiciary workers.
