#EndSARS: Lagos Police Commissioner disarms SARS staff
The Lagos State Police Commissioner, Hakim Odumosu, dismissed the Lagos Anti-Robbery Task Force, following a directive from Police Inspector General Mohamed Adamu.
Odumosu reported this to a group of lawyers protesting police brutality as part of the fierce #EndSARS campaign, saying the SARS-controlled police have already been disarmed and their offices closed.
He added that the detained suspects were transferred to the State Department of Criminal Investigations in Panti for further investigation.
He assured the protesting lawyers that they would never find working SARS agents again.
The KP said, “Regarding the Dissolution General of Police (SARS) directive, if you come here now, you will see them (SARS officers) in their regular police uniform. They are disbanded, all weapons are collected; the cases they were handling and the suspects were transferred to the Panti Criminal Investigation State for further investigation.
“I did all this in accordance with the order of the inspector general. You must understand that we have many police forces in Lagos; we, for example, have a special anti-fraud unit, they traditionally have no weapons, they are in civilian clothes; Likewise, we have Force CID officers in Alagbon, they have no weapons and they don’t need to wear uniforms, these are all specialized police weapons. But what IG disbanded has been disbanded since that day. If you now go to their offices in Surulere, Gbagada, they will be locked up; we just sent police there to guard. They don’t work anymore. “
Odumosu, who praised the demonstrators led by human rights lawyer Inibehe Effiong for their maturity and decency, added that no #EndSARS protester had been killed by police since the protest began last week.
He said the man who died from a stray bullet in Surulere on Monday was not a protester, but a driver who got out of his car to investigate the reason for the stop on the road.
Odumosu added that the police officers who saw the stalking of the protester in the viral video were arrested and jailed.
Effiong previously said that the police should not attack protesters because part of their demands was to improve the social and service conditions for the police.
He said: “We are also asking for adequate funding for the police. I am ashamed to be Nigerian, my citizenship is constantly questioned every time I walk through the police college, police barracks and police quarters. They are not suitable for human habitation. And that’s why we get angry when you attack us, when we protest peacefully, because you too are victims of the collapse of the Nigerian state. “
