Do you know that over 1,100 people have been killed due to police brutality from January to October 2020?

Do you know that the police involved have not faced any trial and no explanation has been given as to why these people were killed? This is just a few of the gruesome works of SARS in Nigeria.

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It all started in Col. Rindam of the Nigerian Army was killed by police at a checkpoint in Lagos in 1992. When the information reached the army, soldiers were deployed to capture any police officer in the city. The Nigerian police officers then fled out of towns abandoning their posts, checkpoints and security areas, and other points of interest for criminals. Some even resigned from the police force for fear of their lives. This occurrence led to a high surge in the rate of crime. Later that year former Police commissioner Simeon Danladi Midenda formed the SPECIAL ANTI-ROBBERY SQUAD (SARS) to combat robbery, motor vehicle theft, kidnapping, cattle rustling, and crimes involving firearms. They were originally fifteen (15) police officers who were operating in the shadows under the government till they were later officially commissioned in Lagos after the dispute between the police and the Soldiers were settled.

Little did the innocent Nigerians know that this would become the birth of “the licensed killing squad”

The beginning of the trouble

In mid-1996, the Lagos branch of SARS captured two safety officers at their work for being suspected to have helped in a burglary. The two watchmen were not officially charged with wrongdoing while captured. In January 1997, the groups of the watchmen were set at a funeral home without clarification for their demises.

In 2009, quite a while after the first incident the crew became stronger. Because of the flood of web-fraudsters and cultism in colleges, SARS agents penetrated Nigerian colleges, made a few fruitful captures however in the process harmed blameless young people. As per a publication by Pulse.ng a Nigerian news site, "What SARS became was a national scourge that witch-hunt

machinery against Nigerian youth with dreadlocks, piercings, cars, expensive phones and risk means of expression”.In May 2010, Amnesty International unveiled that it would be suing the Nigerian Police over denial of basic freedoms expressing that the Special Anti-Robbery Squad in Borokiri, Port Harcourt captured three bicycle riders and confined them for more than a week while being "beaten each night with the knob of a weapon and iron belt."[9] On 20 May 2010, a Federal High Court in Enugu State, requested the then IGP Ogbonna Okechukwu Onovo to deliver a Special Anti-Robbery Squad official who had gunned down a 15 years of age kid in secondary school. As per the SARS official, the adolescent was confused with a kidnapper.[10] On 27 July 2010, a broad publication report was distributed by Sahara Reporters on how SARS among other police units benefit 9.35 Billion Naira ($60 million) from detours and coercion within 18 months.

First Attempt at justice

Following several reports on the inhumane treatment of citizens by SARS officials, the then IGP Solomon Arase announced it would be splitting SARS into two units operational unit and investigative units to curb the infringements of the force on human rights.

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The Second Wave

A September 2016 report published by Amnesty International revealed broad torment and confinement of people without being tried. The report revealed that SARS had been coercing people into involuntarily admitting to criminal offenses, starving people, and several other cases of abuse.

On 10 August 2019, while SARS agents were on an attack in Ijegun to capture ruffians in the region, agents of the unit discharged a few shots in an offer to quell the hijackers and throughout the activity, a stray bullet hit a pregnant lady, she passed on the spot. A furious mob was said to have lynched two cops on the spot.

On 21 August 2019, four SARS agents were captured and accused of homicide in the wake of being caught on video mauling and afterward shooting to death two presumed telephone hoodlums in wide daylight. The two speculated telephone thieves were shot dead after they had been arrested.

On 5 September 2019, agents of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad in Lekki, Lagos supposedly hijacked, tormented, and burglarized Nigerian rapper Ikechukwu Onunaku. As per reports by Punch Nigeria, the rapper had to make a few withdrawals at the ATM to pay SARS agents for sitting idle.

The beginning of the end

On Saturday 3 October 2020, a video began moving via social media indicating a SARS police shoot a youthful Nigerian before Wetland Hotel, Ughelli, Delta State. It was claimed that the SARS police then took away the youngster's vehicle - a Lexus SUV. The viral video caused public clamor via web-based media, particularly on Twitter, with the #ENDSARS hashtag trending.

Enough is enough

(Aisha Yesufu on Twitter)

After the widespread of the gruesome video of the murder of the young man by the SARS operatives, people took to the streets to protest and call an end to the force.

On 11th October 2020, the protestors met the government with five ultimatums. They were first, the immediate release of all arrested during the protests as well as justice and compensation for all who died through police brutality in Nigeria. They also demanded that an independent body be set up within 10 days to investigate and prosecute all reports of police misconduct. The protestors also asked for psychological evaluation and retraining of SARS operatives before they are deployed to any other police unit. Lastly, they asked for adequate remuneration for Nigerian police.

In response to the public objection to the police brutality, the Inspector-General of Nigeria Police restricted the FSARS, Special Tactical Squad (STS), Intelligence Response Team (IRT), Anti-Cultism Squad, and other strategic units from mounting of barriers, checkpoints, stop and search and other daily schedule and watches yet they have done likewise for more than four times in four distinct years making Citizens of Nigeria question their activities.

The End?

On Sunday, 11 October 2020, Nigeria's Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu declared the "dissolution" of SARS. Numerous Nigerians inside the development scrutinized the declaration, in any case, bringing up that comparative guarantees had been made in before years and that the administration arranged to reassign SARS officials to other police offices instead to dispense them from the power entirely.

The protests proceeded notwithstanding the "disintegration" the same number of do not believe the announcement. On Tuesday, 13 October 2020, an official statement marked by Femi Adesina the Presidential representative, shows that the Nigerian Government has accepted to the five requests of the End SARS protestors.