By Emeagi Emeka Williams
TO emphasize that the clamour for the total scrapping of the Special Anti-Robbery wing of the Nigeria Police by citizens from different quarters of the country is a misplaced priority or action; will be to State the obvious; given the ground that the entire Nigerian polity is presently almost totally eclipsed by myriad of criminal activities perpetrated by diverse criminal elements for divergent reasons.
Robbery activities of with lethal implications that most times have cosmocidal consequences upon families and communities are parts of the criminality that rock Nigeria, nearly bringing her to her knees.
And for the police to combat dare-devil, multi-dimensional contemporary armed robbers, who device terminal modus operandi, and marshal sophisticated weapons while on the rampage; the SARS units become too essentially significant as a panacea to the incessant operations of teeming robbers sprouting scaringly from the various nooks and crannies, either as a result of poverty or greed-driven ambitions, in a society where threatening disregard is paid to morality and dignity.
These points that none can gainsay and many more grant credence to this subject; and the attention of the entire public or citizenry is drawn to the debilitating effect the uprooting and/or the sacking of the SARS outfit of our dear police platform in Nigeria will have on the security health of the nation to the detriment of all.
While tremendous reforms and corrective inputs are fundamental in the ensuing situation more than ever before; to check excesses of certain disgruntled members of the police family, who abuse and misuse the constitutional and statutory opportunities they have as policemen in Nigeria, by gross misbehaviours and misconducts that have resulted in extra-judicial and brutish termination of lives or the inflicting of fatal injuries; it must be specially butteressed that these bad eggs are not the wishes and desires of the police authorities who are greatly concerned with how to attain global standards to ensure plausible practices that would ultimately re-write the narratives of the Nigeria Police that remains the all-time hope of the Nigerian people for the sustenance of law and order and the maintenance of security and safety, in a world that keeps evolving.
As a matter of fact and as a matter of order citizens should push for the purging of the police to flush out some of the impish fiends who use the uniform and fire arm as tools and instruments for brutality and oppression rather than as weapons to patriotically protect and secure the citizens while combating Marauders in low and high places, without fear; a situation that will win the trust and confidence of the people who at all times would embrace the police officer as a friend, not a termination man.
The activities, actions and dispositions of some policemen have not only vexed, angered and exasperated the public, but have also embarrassed the leadership of the Nigeria Police, leaving them with much to worry about than to celebrate. And it is on this note that the outcry should be channelled outrightly in the direction of sweeping the rotten ones out of SARS, even in the entire corridor of the police service (because they are not only existent in SARS), rather than seeking to End SARS.
This beckon is serious against the background that some of the youths and people crying foul may just be seeking to clear the coast for the possibility of an unhindered criminal circum-navigation when SARS is shown the door.
It is nevertheless sad, sorry and unfortunate that the evil ones of SARS inflicted pain and embarrassment upon innocent citizens, and must be brought to book without delay of any form. But in pursuing this reform, lives of police officers on duty should not be terminated and lives and property of other citizen should not be destroyed.
