Election: Police to deploy SARS to Kogi

The Inspector-General of Police (I-G), Mr Solomon Arase, on Friday said Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) squad would be deployed to Kogi for the Nov. 21 governorship election.

Arase made the disclosure at the inauguration of ‘’Re-branded SARS’’ and newly-established Complaint Response Unit (CRU) of the police in Abuja.

He said that the squad would complement the regular police during the polls.

Arase also said that the force had taken cognisance of compliant by members of the public about unethical behaviour of the police operatives and consistent allegation of human rights abuses.

He admitted that actions of the operatives had constituted sources of civil litigations against the police and had affected the lean budget of the force.

He expressed concern that a police, which was constitutionally established to protect lives and property of citizens had become uncivil to the people.

“The resonating concern of members of the public, therefore, had been their mode of operation.

“The Force leadership is convinced that the time has come to break from the past by rebranding the SARS nationwide through a phased programme,“ he said.

The IG said that an operational protocol had also been developed to regulate operations of the squad and define standards for their response to incidents.

“In addition, in days to come, the weapon profile of SARS will be reviewed towards the engagement of less lethal technologies and weapon system,“ he said.

He announced that in the next one year, SARS in all police formations would have undergone the rebranding programme, adding that the era where operatives of the squad wore mufti was gone.

“The era of wearing jeans, T-shirt and head and arm bands is gone,“ he said.

He said that the force resolved to establish the CRU to bridge the communication gap between the police and the public, explaining that the unit would act as a central, information technology-driven public complaint unit of the force.

“It will take full advantage of ICT and social media platform to interface with the public toward receiving and processing issues from members of the public,“ he said.

The police boss said that the unit was designed to complement existing in-house public complaints monitoring and processing frameworks.

“The broad objective of the launch of the CRU is to entrench police accountability values into our policing system,“ he added. (NAN)

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