Sunday Ehindero, former inspector-general of police (IGP), says the special anti-robbery squad (SARS) is not a bad outfit.
Ehindero spoke in Lagos at the presentation of “Reminiscences: My Journey Through Life”, a memoir of Sunday Akintan, a retired judge of the supreme court, on Wednesday.
The police unit has come under heated criticisms over the past few days, with many Nigerians condemning its operatives for harassment and extra-judicial killings.
This had birthed the #EndSARS campaign amid the demand for an end to police brutality and comprehensive reform of the force.
The former IGP attributed the criticisms trailing SARS to the actions of “few bad eggs” in the police unit.
“There is no organisation that does what we call quality control more than the police. Each year, we weed out the bad eggs, query and send them away but there will always be bad eggs in any service,” he said.
“A bad egg will always corrupt others. So, the unit is not a bad outfit, we only have bad operators in the unit now.”
Ehindero, however, backed calls for the reform of the disbanded police unit, noting that it has “deviated” from its original mandate of fighting robbery.
“SARS is supposed to be the teeth of the police in terms of robbery. They are to confront robbers and you know robbers are people that are difficult to handle and in most cases you have a lot of police have been killed,” he added.
“There is a need to reform it, so that from the initial objective which birthed SARS. They have to go back and look at the initial objective.”
He also advocated comprehensive reform of the country’s police force by providing its officials with requisite trainings required to operate in line with global standards.
“I am more interested in training. The society is getting enlightened. Training has been the main problem of the police force. There’s dynamism in how the police should operate now,” he added.
The former police chief enjoined youth to adopt diplomatic means in championing the #EndSARS movement, considering the federal government’s response so far.
Mohammed Adamu, inspector-general of police, disbanded SARS following the nationwide outrage.
THE CABLE